The G7 Summit and the Bonn Climate Conference 2025 Fail to Deliver, Mounting Pressure on COP30

It’s halfway through the most important year for climate action, and two of the most crucial meetings in the calendar, the G7 Summit 2025 in Canada and the Bonn Climate Conference 2025, are already behind us. However, after days of intense talks, both meetings failed to produce meaningful results, once again highlighting that developed nations and the biggest polluters aren’t on the same page with the least developed and most climate-vulnerable countries. The prospects that nations will accelerate climate action and pledge targets consistent with a 1.5°C scenario are also grim, according to the most recent research. Now, the world looks toward the months leading up to COP30 in Brazil and the 2035 NDC targets that 80% of countries are yet to submit for an answer to the overarching question: What level of warming should we be bracing ourselves for?

Climate and Energy Highlights From the 2025 Bonn Climate Conference

The intercessional climate meetings during the UN’s Bonn Climate Conference, which took place between June 16 and 26, were the only formal climate negotiations before COP, when all 197 Parties to the Paris Agreement would come together. While experts didn’t expect any headline-grabbing outcomes, it was still necessary for the talks to demonstrate tangible progress on key negotiation items, such as climate change mitigation, adaptation, finance and loss and damage, to help keep the 1.5°C goal within reach and pave the way for a productive COP30. 

“It is important for high-ambition countries and coalitions to use Bonn to sustain political momentum by demonstrating early fossil fuel transition measures, such as ending new fossil fuel licensing, setting clear phaseout timelines, phasing out coal, or reforming fossil fuel subsidies,” urged Leo Roberts, a program lead at E3G, in the lead-up to the Bonn Climate Conference. 

On a similar tone, leaders of climate-vulnerable small island states and least-developed countries also urged negotiators to not only ramp up mitigation and adaptation efforts and climate finance support but to commit to ambitious NDCs to cut fossil fuels and reduce GHG emissions to protect the communities that were at the front line of a crisis they didn’t cause.

Yet, none of this happened, as the talks were once again marked by protracted discussions of the agenda and process-related arguments.

On Fossil Fuels

“We are seeing that countries like the UK have phased out coal, but others like Japan continue to fund fossil fuels abroad,” said Cosima Cassel, a program lead at E3G, during a press conference at the start of the Bonn Climate Conference.

The division was glaringly evident during the talks. The final text lacks a direct reference to “transitioning away” from fossil fuels, ultimately delaying progress for COP30. Experts aren’t exactly hopeful, considering that the oil sector regulator of Brazil, this year’s COP host, recently announced plans to auction the exploration rights for 172 oil and gas blocks, mainly offshore. According to Carbon Brief, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities, the auction is likely to proceed.

On Climate Finance

There was some progress on the Baku to Belém roadmap, launched to appease countries unhappy with the current status and outcome of the New Collective Quantified Goal. Nations and civil society groups will now communicate their views on how to scale up climate finance to reach the USD 1.3 trillion target, ultimately producing a final roadmap document by the end of October. 

However, the topic of climate finance and who should pay the bill caused division between developed and developing nations, ultimately delaying discussions until COP30.  

On Adaptation, Loss and Damage

Parties didn’t reach an agreement and draft conclusions for national adaptation plans. Negotiators also failed to make progress on discussions about loss and damage, ultimately postponing the matter to COP30.

However, the talks secured important gains for developing countries, mainly through accelerated progress on specifying the climate change adaptation indicators that will be featured in the technical report due in August.

Still, the least developed countries expressed disappointment about the barriers they face in adaptation finance.

Additional Discussions

At the Bonn conference, parties also discussed the potential for reforming the UN climate talks, including the introduction of a majority-based decision-making process and a voting principle when reaching consensus on specific agenda items proves challenging.

Participants also discussed ideas for improving the integrity of COP presidencies following the lack of progress in recent climate talks hosted by petrostates. If implemented, these proposals would mitigate the risk of single nations blocking progress.

The 51st G7 Summit Promised Focus on Climate But Prioritised Geopolitics, Economics and Trade War Talks

In the lead-up to the G7 meeting, leaders stated that discussions on protecting communities and the world, as well as building energy security, would be among their top priorities. Reports indicated that parties were also likely to discuss potential areas of convergence, such as addressing climate change and restoring scientific and medical research collaboration. 

Before the official meeting, the Royal Society of Canada hosted the Science 7 (S7), an engagement meeting of the leading academies of the G7 member countries. In one of the statements focusing on the health impacts of climate change, the experts recommended a range of mitigation strategies for transforming health and social services — such as early warning infectious disease systems and biomonitoring — developing new regulations nationally and internationally to improve climate change disaster preparedness and providing economic and regulatory incentives to foster adaptation and resiliency of health systems. Among their suggestions was also investing in innovative solutions (including vaccine development for emerging diseases, wastewater surveillance) to mitigate climate change and its health risks. On account of their recommendations, the S7 urged leaders to use the G7 meeting to prioritise climate change discussions. 

Ahead of the G7 Summit, Canadian civil society groups also urged leaders to prioritise climate action. In addition, the fact that Canada is widely affected by climate change, warming at twice the global rate and resulting in heatwaves, wildfires and floods, provided sufficient arguments for the matter to top the agenda of the talks. In fact, leaders gathered for the annual G7 Summit days after Canada suffered the second-worst fire season in decades. 

Still, prior to the conference, there were few signs of hope that the discussions would prove fruitful due to weak ambition from the host to concentrate the focus on climate talks and the presence of a climate change-denying US and a fossil fuel technology-obsessed Japan at the table. Additionally, for the second consecutive year, the G7 host invited Saudi Arabia. According to reports, the leader was invited to help broker peace in Gaza. Still, the move angered activists due to Saudi Arabia’s efforts to derail the global energy transition, as well as its track record in regard to human rights.

Despite the calls, the public pressure and the pledged determination of G7 leaders to focus on the climate crisis, the 50th anniversary of the meeting proved an unmemorable one. During the conference, all the agenda items related to climate and energy took a backseat, with leaders prioritising discussions on the geopolitical situation and the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israel, and in Gaza. US President Trump even left early due to the intensifying conflict in the Middle East.

“We cannot move forward quickly enough on the needed clean, just energy transition with a US government hostile to the very concept of the climate crisis and the readily available tools necessary to fight it,” said JL Andrepont, US senior policy analyst at 350.org. “Unfortunately, G7 leaders followed in Trump’s footsteps and ended the meeting pretending climate change doesn’t exist.“ 

As most countries adopted a “wait and see” approach, the G7 Summit failed to advance key energy- and climate-related matters, including discussions on phasing out fossil fuels and protecting the most vulnerable from the climate crisis. All the charters and statements released following the summit failed to include any mention of climate change or ambitious policy reforms for tackling the climate crisis, causing disappointment among activists and concerned parties. 

According to 350.org, the G7 leaders missed a crucial opportunity to lead on climate and stand up against fossil fuel interests and the Trump administration, urging the group to reinforce its climate commitments through a dedicated ministerial meeting on energy and the environment ahead of COP30 in Brazil.

G7 and Bonn Disappoint, But NDCs Offer Governments Another Chance to Demonstrate Climate Leadership

At the time of writing, nearly 170 nations haven’t published their 2035 NDC. Many of the submitted targets are deemed “weak,” according to Professor Niklas Höhne from the NewClimate Institute. 

“Countries should submit NDCs by September so that their results are taken into account for the IPCC Synthesis Report. Otherwise, we won’t know what the state of play is at COP30,” said Cosima Cassel, a program lead at E3G, during a press conference at the start of the Bonn Climate Conference.

Research by 350.org finds that over 80% of the nations that have submitted updated NDCs as of March this year support the COP28 goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. Another report by E3G and Zero Carbon Analytics warns that while countries are bolstering fossil fuel phaseout commitments, it isn’t fast enough to keep temperature goals alive.

As of the end of June, just 25 countries have submitted their NDCs, with 79% of nations yet to do so. However, the pledged targets hardly move the needle compared to the 2030 NDCs when it comes to emissions reductions. According to Climate Watch, the unconditional targets in the updated NDCs will result in a 1.4 GtCO2e reduction by 2035 when the world needs to reduce emissions by 29.5 GtCO2e to remain on track with the Paris Agreement.

Among the G20, which is responsible for 80% of global emissions, only five countries have submitted their NDCs: Canada, Brazil, Japan, the US and the UK. Of these, only the UK’s NDC is compatible with a 1.5°C target. Whether the world will manage to keep the Paris Agreement temperature goal alive will increasingly depend on the NDCs of the EU, China and India. According to the OECD, the enhanced NDCs should be ambitious, implementable and investable. 

While the IPCC warns that limiting warming to 1.5°C requires emissions to peak by 2025 and fall 43% by 2030, existing fossil fuel infrastructure risks exceeding the current carbon budget. As a result, both the IEA and the IPCC warn that no new fossil fuel projects are needed, and 95% of energy investment should shift to clean energy by 2035.

According to E3G, major emitters such as the EU, China and India must lead the way in phasing out fossil fuels, while countries like Indonesia and South Africa can demonstrate how climate goals and development can be achieved in tandem.

More Ambitious NDCs Are Needed For the Paris Agreement Not to Slip Away

An analysis by the World Resources Institute of the already submitted NDCs reveals that nations are increasingly prioritising adaptation. While this is critical, adaptation is more of a reactive measure, which, on its own, has its limitations. Equally, if not more important, is accelerating mitigation efforts. Without it, the costs of adaptation will not only continue to increase and pile up but, at some point, will exceed our ability to manage the climate crisis.

Experts believe some of the already submitted NDCs offer good examples for countries yet to submit their targets to emulate. For example, the UK’s NDC states that the country will launch consultations on halting licenses for new oil and gas fields, which scientists consider crucial for keeping the 1.5°C target alive. Canada’s NDC promises to end new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector. Other good practices include those of the Marshall Islands, which linked the phaseout of fossil fuels to improved air quality, new employment opportunities for women and enhanced energy security. Moldova’s targets, meanwhile, highlight reduced exposure to volatile international energy prices and lower public health costs. 

According to the IISD, at a minimum, countries that are about to submit an NDC should commit to not issuing new exploration licenses for coal, oil and gas and to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Furthermore, it is essential to establish quantitative targets to reduce or phase out fossil fuel production and use and to provide a clear pathway for ending public financial support for fossil fuels, including production.

National climate plans, or NDCs, are no longer just about emissions — they are rapidly becoming blueprints for enhanced energy security and economic and development opportunities. In fact, the OECD estimates that submitting strong NDCs could increase global GDP by as much as 13% by the end of the century and lift 175 million people out of poverty.

The Lack of Progress in Climate Talks During the G7 Summit and in Bonn Put More Pressure on COP30 

COP30 follows last year’s disappointing climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the “foot-dragging” at this year’s G7 and Bonn talks. Paired with the election of Donald Trump as US president and the continued pressure from petrostates to derail climate progress, COP30 is facing lots of uncertainty.

The host, Brazil, is urging all countries to submit their NDCs by September so that they can be discussed at COP30. Ahead of the talks, the UN climate change body, the UNFCCC, plans to release a report assessing the collective impact of all NDCs submitted to date. However, the signs, including those from Bonn and the G7 Summit, are unequivocal: new NDCs will not put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5°C, and the emissions gap will likely remain wide. In that sense, the report threatens to confirm what we already know — the world needs greater ambition and more decisive action.

As a result, Brazil must demonstrate how NDCs that come up short can be improved or remedied and advocate for more collaboration in making faster and deeper cuts. The host should also resist the pressure from fossil fuel producers and their allies who have continuously tried to derail climate negotiations.

“With the September NDC deadline fast approaching, Brazil has a critical chance to turn that signal into substance. As COP30 host, it can rally countries to submit climate plans with real timelines, clear targets, and credible strategies to move beyond fossil fuels,” said Leo Roberts, program lead in E3G’s Global Clean Power Diplomacy team.

Furthermore, after small island and other climate-vulnerable nations spent years escalating the importance of loss and damage at UN talks, the contributions to the hard-fought fund are less than 0.2% of their annual needs.

Experts urge: at COP30, process must give way to progress. While Bonn was frustrating, COP30 shouldn’t be if the world is to keep the Paris Agreement target alive. For this to happen, countries need to arrive in Belém with clear goals and a shared determination to scale up climate action.

“In its latest letter, the COP Presidency finally named what’s at stake: phasing out fossil fuels and tripling renewables,” added Roberts. “Now the pressure’s on.”