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What to expect at the annual UN Climate Change Conference (SB58) meeting in Bonn, Germany

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picture of Bonn Climate Conference room

In advance of COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, the annual UN Climate Change Conference (SB58) is meeting in Bonn, Germany, from June 5th to June 15th to lay the groundwork for the highly anticipated international conference later this year. SB58 will build on the mandates that emerged from COP27 and seek to answer critical questions and pave the way for a successful COP28.  

The Center for Global Sustainability (CGS) at the University of Maryland along with the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST), Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW), and the Early Career Scholars for an Inclusive Stocktake (ECSIS) are showing up to support and inform robust discussion on the global stocktake, the global goal on adaptation, implementing loss and damage, ensuring a just transition, and enhanced global ambition.

Highlights at SB58:

Learn more below.

Global Stocktake

This year’s Bonn Climate Change Conference will mark the conclusion of the technical phase of the first global stocktake (GST) to evaluate collective progress and assess whether international efforts will be sufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goals. After Bonn, the GST will enter the political phase that will work towards a strong outcome of the first stocktake at COP28. Negotiators at SB58 will discuss the final outputs of the stocktaking process

To assist with stocktaking efforts, new exploratory research from the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST) and GHG Management Institute, with support from the Center for Global Sustainability (CGS) and Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW), provides a comprehensive look at addressing the complex problems for measuring and evaluating transparency capacity under the GST process. Effective measuring of climate progress requires the capacity to measure, report, and verify climate data and information. To measure capacity progress in climate transparency, this paper identifies 65 relevant indicators for facilitating measurement and evaluation of transparency capacity and assess each indicator for data clarity/availability and defines areas for further research and development.

At COP27, CGS and CEEW launched the Early Career Scholars for an Inclusive Stocktake (ECSIS) program which gathers early-career scholars from around the world with diverse disciplinary and cultural backgrounds to discuss topics of urgency and relevance to the global stocktake (GST). Facilitated by the iGST, this program will help identify critical gaps in stocktaking and come up with innovative solutions. Check out the three different briefs our ECSIS scholars produced to learn more about the GST.

The Global Goal on Adaptation

In 2015, the Paris Agreement established the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) to enhance work on adaptation with the aim of building adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. At SB58, global stocktake discussions will include assessing progress toward achieving the GGA. Spurred by calls from less-developed countries and those already hit by the impacts of climate change, adaptation is a central facet of SB58 discussions. Many developing countries feel as though wealthier, more developed countries should pay for adaptation and mitigation costs, as developed countries are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. There are still concerns over whether or not wealthy countries are pledging enough adaptation finance, as developing countries are still looking for more support. 

  • Event: World Café Station 9: Reviewing the overall progress made in achieving the global goal on adaptation
    • Date: Tuesday, June 6, 2023
    • Time: 15:00 - 18:00 CEST
    • Location: Bonn, Germany, Restaurant next to the Chamber Hall, WCCB
    • SPP Speaker(s):
    • Event agenda

Loss and Damage

The concept of loss and damage—the consequences of climate change that go beyond what a nation or community can adapt to or abate through mitigation measures—has been a contentious topic due to the extent of financial needs for vulnerable developing countries. COP27 saw significant progress on adaptation and resilience, with loss and damage added as an agenda item for the first time. In the end, COP27 culminated in a historic agreement to establish and operationalize a loss and damage fund. A key task at SB58 is to prepare decisions at COP28 to operationalize the new loss and damage fund and funding arrangements, along with deciding on the host for the Santiago network on loss and damage.

  • Event: GST Technical Dialogue, Roundtable on adaptation and loss & damage
    • Date: Thursday, June 8, 2023
    • Time: 15:00 - 18:00 CEST (11:00 AM - 2:00 PM EST)
    • Location: Bonn, Germany, Chamber Hall, Plenary Building
    • SPP Speaker(s):
    • Watch here!

Just Transition

A just transition to a sustainable society is another critical discussion for this year’s Bonn Climate Conference. The concept of a just transition can be applied broadly to supporting every facet of society that will be impacted by a clean energy transition. However, it is commonly applied to supporting the impacted fossil fuel workers and surrounding communities whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuel production. With millions of people working in the coal value chains worldwide, there are millions of jobs that are jeopardized. There are already a number of global partnerships to aid workers in coal-reliant countries (ex. South Africa and Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnerships) but there are still millions of workers worldwide that will be affected. A just transition centers around protecting fossil fuel workers and fossil fuel-dependent communities, ensuring they are not left behind in the transition toward clean energy.

CGS’s recently released policy brief, International experience in a just coal workforce transition through fiscal support, analyzes the average cost of a just employment transition by reviewing policies to aid impacted coal workers across seven countries. To inform other countries in designing their transition policies, our research analyzes the types of worker support policies used in other countries and quantifies the cost to provide useful data for other countries’ transitions. The brief defines and quantifies the cost of the three policy types—rehiring, income compensation, and health support.

Mitigation Work Programme

At UNFCCC forums, the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP) provides a space for negotiations on climate mitigation ambition and implementation progress. The MWP provides another tool to increase ambition in climate pledges, but developing countries do not want it to be another GST that requires setting new targets and obligations. At the same time, this is another space for discussions on demands for international climate finance and technological support to accelerate the clean energy transition. At SB58, MWP will also discuss achieving a just energy transition.


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