Highlights and images for 3 June 2024

The lines at the entrance of the World Conference Center on the opening day of the 2024 Bonn Climate Change Conference left no doubt: the meeting might not see the attendance of heads of state and government that are now typical at the November meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), but participant numbers are higher than ever.

Want to dig deeper into today's talks? Read the full Earth Negotiations Bulletin daily report.

Executive Secretary Simon Stiell opened the meeting by urging delegates to think of the work ahead as a feat of engineering: now that the design phase is complete, delegates “must put the machinery to work fully and fairly,” with every part working together coherently. He pointed to key areas of work, such as negotiations towards a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance, the preparation of the first biennial transparency reports under the Paris Agreement, and the development of the next round of nationally determined contributions. 

The Chairs of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies noted the meeting features a record number of 30 mandated events–and that, in fact, the first mandated events had taken place even before the negotiations themselves began.

For example, delegates kicked off a three-day workshop on gender earlier in the day. Its objective is to reflect on progress, challenges, gaps, and priorities in implementing the Gender Action Plan and reflect on future work to be undertaken on gender and climate change. Delegates split into regional groups, then reconvened to discuss issues related to capacity building, knowledge management, monitoring and reporting, and participation.

Another highlight was a technical expert dialogue on the NCQG, to be defined prior to 2025. This is the tenth in a series of events aimed at facilitating the exchange of views between parties and stakeholders, including from the finance sector. Panel discussions focused on the goal’s level of ambition, qualitative elements, the goal’s structure, and transparency arrangements. These exchanges will feed into future discussions on the new goal convened under the dedicated ad hoc work programme, with the aim of helping to prepare a draft negotiation text ahead of COP 29 in Baku.