Climate campaigners attending the United Nations mid-year talks in Bonn, Germany, have demanded urgent reforms to the annual conferences of parties (COPs) climate summit negotiations.

In an unprecedented joint call issued in Bonn on Tuesday, more than 200 climate campaign groups called for critical reforms to the way UN climate talks are conducted, saying that the negotiations have reached a “breaking point”. The negotiations are under fire for not delivering enough climate action.

Many delegates, including COP30 President-designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago and CEO Ana Toni have left Bonn for the London Climate Action Week, which has doubled in size since last year.

“Those left behind are wondering if the UN climate process is still fit for purpose. For the more than 200 campaign groups. The answer is no,” say Megan Rowling and Joe Lo, editors of Climate Home News, an award-winning independent digital publication reporting on the international politics of the climate crisis.

Bonn serves as a hub for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), hosting various meetings and conferences, including the Subsidiary Body sessions (SBs) and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23). The city is also home to several UN organisations and offices, contributing to its identity as a UN city.

The campaigners are offering a plan to rescue the climate talks from “breaking point” in their joint call, which seeks measures to tackle fossil fuel industry influence, persuade governments to pick COP hosts with integrity, end the “trade show” element of COPs and allow holders of all passports to get visas to attend.

Vote for change

They also want decisions to be taken with a vote rather than requiring consensus. Ironically, moving to voting would require three-quarters of governments to vote in favour of the change, notes Climate Home.

The difference that shift might make was shown earlier this year at the shipping talks – where governments agreed to green measures despite objections from Saudi Arabia.

“The petrostates that have blocked the adoption of voting rules all the way since COP1 in 1995 in Berlin, Germany – and benefited from a de facto power of veto – will likely fight tooth and nail to make sure that doesn’t happen in the climate arena,” they noted.

Tuesday’s ‘United Call for an Urgent Reform of the UN Climate Talks’ presented in Bonn, supported by civil society and Indigenous Peoples, focuses on reforming the UNFCCC process, particularly the COPs.

The call emphasises five key areas. First, it wants embracing majority-based decision-making to overcome deadlocks., second, ending the “trade show” atmosphere of COPs, and third, establishing an accountability framework to address conflicts of interest.

Fourth, the joint call seeks curbing undue influence of lobbyists and fifth, ensuring inclusivity, transparency, accountability, and upholding of human rights in negotiations.

Specifically, the call urges the 198 UNFCCC member states to consider majority decision-making when consensus cannot be reached, according to the Centre of International Environmental Law (CIEL).

It also seeks to address the perceived “trade show” nature of COPs by establishing mechanisms to mitigate conflicts of interest and limit the influence of fossil fuel and other polluting industry lobbyists.

The reform proposals also aim to make the climate negotiations more inclusive transparent, accountable, and to better protect human rights.

Lien Vandamme, a senior campaigner at CIEL, said in a statement:

“For 30 years, the climate negotiations have systematically failed to deliver climate justice, undermined international law and allowed the fossil fuel industry to write the rules”.

Rachitaa Gupta, coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, said that the UN’s climate system must fundamentally reimagine itself.

“It must reform,” she added. “Anything short of this is continued complicity in the climate crisis”.

Unlike with many other UN conventions, decisions at the annual COPs to the UNFCCC require consensus. While that is not clearly defined, it is interpreted to mean at least the vast majority of governments.

This stems from the first COP in 1995, when fossil fuel-exporting governments like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked the adoption of voting rules. The rules for approving decisions have never been formally agreed, leaving governments to require consensus by default.

“The climate process must no longer be held hostage by the narrow interests of a few,” says the climate campaigners’ ‘United Call’, a document of a dozen pages outlining the reform proposals.

“The absence of agreed procedures for decision-making allows big polluting countries to hold the negotiations hostage,” Vandamme added.

Low bar

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, another fossil fuel-exporting government, oil-dependent nations blocked agreement on how to follow up on the commitment at COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

Developed countries watered down ambition on a new climate finance goal, with some Global South governments expressing their disappointment even when it was adopted.

In 2021, Mexico and Papua New Guinea formally proposed an amendment to the climate convention for decisions to be taken if three-quarters of government vote in favour. But that push was unsuccessful.

Adopting this amendment would itself require a vote with a three-quarters majority. The campaign groups’ call does not put forward a concrete suggestion for how to implement voting under the UNFCCC.

Campaigners want measures to end undue influence on COP delegates from fossil fuel companies and other big emitters of planet-warming gases. Research from Kick Big Polluters Out campaign estimated that 1,800 fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP29 last year, mainly as part of trade association but also as part of government delegations.

The joint call says countries hosting COPs should not enter into corporate partnerships, especially with companies that have a high-carbon footprint.

Previous COP presidencies have used these partnerships to help cover the costs of hosting. Working with energy companies like Iberdrola, SSE and SOCAR, for example.

Vandamme said it was important to host COPs in different regions but COP hosts needing money to organise the conference cannot be an argument to allow corporate sponsorships. She said governments should collectively help the host nation fund it, “for example through partnerships or contributing finance to support a COP”.

The joint call seeks COP host integrity, pointing out that “climate talks have been hosted in countries with problematic human rights records and significant fossil fuel interests”. The last three COPs were in Azerbaijan, Egypt and the UAE, which are all large producers of oil and gas. The campaign groups said they want future CP presidencies to “demonstrate tangible progress on climate action”.

Next year is the turn of the “Western Europe and Others” group, and their negotiators are currently deciding between Australia and Türkiye. After that it will be Africa’s turn – with Nigeria bidding to host COP32 in Lagos – followed by Asia-Pacific, with India wanting to host that summit.

While the joint statement does not go into details of how to ensure that COP host nations demonstrate climate progress, Vandamme suggests that the UNFCCC could draw up a set of criteria for governments to use when they are choosing a COP country.