Bonn Climate Talks: Bangladesh presses for grants, equity and climate justice

More than 5,000 government delegates and stakeholders from around the world are set to gather in Bonn tomorrow (16 June) for the opening of the 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62), a key milestone on the road to the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil, this November.

This ten-day mid-year negotiation is considered crucial for translating climate pledges into tangible actions. It aims to build on the outcomes of COP29 in Baku and push forward critical decisions for adoption at COP30.

Negotiations will center on a broad range of pressing issues — including finalising indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation, advancing a just transition, implementing the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap to mobilise $1.3 trillion in climate finance, and maintaining momentum on mitigation efforts.

Bangladesh is actively participating in the talks. The Business Standard spoke with Professor AKM Saiful Islam, one of the country's official negotiators attending SB62. 

Professor Islam, from the Institute of Water and Flood Management at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), has contributed to several major IPCC reports, including the Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. He is currently serving as a Lead Author for the IPCC's Special Report on Climate Change and Cities under the Seventh Assessment Cycle.

In an exclusive interview, Professor Islam discusses Bangladesh's priorities and expectations from the ongoing Bonn negotiations.

What are Bangladesh's key priorities regarding climate finance at SB 62? 

Professor Islam: Bangladesh will focus on finance, adaptation, access to funding, loss and damage, institutional strengthening & capacity building, and just transition issues. The key priority area-

• Doubling adaptation funding by 2025 and beyond, with full access to grants but not loans, which will help the country to avoid debt burdens in the future.
• Bangladesh is advocating for a new and additional public finance, and focusing on a balance and equal allocation of 50:50 between mitigation and adaptation 
• Providing access to funding through Direct Access Entities (DAEs) for simpler, faster delivery mechanisms.
• The loss and damage funding should be fully operationalized with clear, predictable, and immediate disbursement modalities by 2025. 
• The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) should include loss and damage with fair and transparent allocation for the highly vulnerable nations. 

How is Bangladesh advocating for more grant-based climate finance rather than loans in the negotiations?

Professor Islam: Bangladesh is urged to strengthen the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) to ensure grant-based financing for adaptation and loss & damage, with only mitigation funds being concessional loans if necessary. 

Bangladesh is working closely with the G77, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) to support a unified stance that climate finance must be grants, especially for adaptation and loss & damage. 

We will also negotiate that 100% of adaptation finance should be in the form of non-repayable grants to avoid debt traps in climate-vulnerable countries. 

We will continue negotiating to double adaptation funding and target replenishments to multilateral adaptation-specific funds like the Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund from 2025. By demanding grants for adaptation and loss & damage, Bangladesh stresses that these are compensatory needs for climate injustice, not investment opportunities that should accrue obligations. 

Is Bangladesh pushing for improvements in the quality of climate finance, such as better transparency, predictability, or direct access for vulnerable countries?

Professor Islam: Bangladesh has advanced its Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement, building national Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems and databases that integrate finance tracking, greenhouse gas inventories, adaptation, mitigation and emissions reporting. Civil society groups, such as Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), are also advising the delegation to press for greater transparency and accountability in the delivery and governance of climate finance, especially of public grant flows. 

At the last Conference of Parties (COP29), Bangladesh argued for public finance being the primary source under the NCQG, including at least 20% of funding channeled through trusted UNFCCC mechanisms (GCF, Adaptation Fund) to ensure consistency and dependability. However, it is also important to empower national institutes for direct access to climate funding. Institutional learning is extremely important for direct access modalities with entities including the GCF, Adaptation Fund, GEF, and carbon markets. 

What is Bangladesh's position on increasing adaptation finance, and how is it promoting the needs of climate-vulnerable communities?

Professor Islam: Bangladesh is demanding major scaling-up of adaptation finance by doubling (or more) adaptation funding by 2025, ensuring that this increase comes in the form of new and additional public finance, not reallocated or recycled resources. 

The delegation will insist that adaptation grants should make up at least 50% of the total climate finance flow abroad by recognizing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable countries. 

We will urge Prioritising Community-Driven Resilience by highlighting the importance of on-the-ground, community-centric adaptation interventions, which include climate-resilient agriculture, flood protection, saline-resistant crops, urban flood preparedness, cyclone protection, and ensuring that finance benefits the most impacted low-income households. We will continue to emphasise direct access to finance by national institutions, allowing local governments and community organisations to implement and manage projects directly, rather than funneling through international intermediaries. 

We emphasise linking loss and damage with adaptation investments, allowing communities already experiencing irreversible damage to receive compensatory support. It is also noteworthy to mention that delayed adaptation not only increases vulnerability but also exacerbates loss and damage costs while making early adaptation finance a cost-saving approach over time. 

Bangladesh supports systemic Integration from National Plans, including National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to Global Funding, including GCF, Adaptation Fund, and other channels. 

The delegates will advocate creating predictable and long-term financing pipelines for NAP priorities to support communities' climate-resilient development as opposed to short-term and project-by-project funding.  

With frequent cyclones, flooding, river erosion, salinity intrusion and over 35 million people at extreme risk, Bangladesh needs massive adaptation finance to build climate resilience. By calling for grants but not loans, we seek to build resilience without increasing indebtedness for low-income communities. 

In this context, direct funding and community-level engagement ensure interventions that are culturally appropriate, timely, and sustainable. 

Bangladesh will emphasise a finance architecture at SB62 that ensures adaptation funding is not only scaled up but also predictable, community-focused, grant-based, and effectively enables poor and vulnerable communities to withstand and thrive amid accelerating climate impacts.

How is Bangladesh engaging in discussions around the NCQG (post-2025 finance goal), and what outcomes is it hoping for from SB 62?

Professor Islam: Bangladesh will engage in discussions for grant-based and public finance for the NCQG. Bangladesh is firmly urging that, within the NCQG, adaptation and loss and damage components should be met entirely through public, grant-based flows without loans. 

Mitigation finance may include concessional loans (if necessary), but grants must be the major component. The allocation of funds should be Equitable and Vulnerability Based. A separate sub-target for loss and damage should be included, with explicit grant-based commitments. 

As a highly climate-vulnerable nation, Bangladesh wants to ensure that it isn't encumbered with additional debt. The allocation of shares should be balanced as mentioned earlier, with 50% each for mitigation and adaptation.

Bangladesh will continue to negotiate for direct access mechanisms, enabling funds to reach national entities without donor intermediaries. It is also important to strengthen transparency frameworks to keep track of the pledges and what flows. Bangladesh is supporting the allocation criteria tied to vulnerability metrics such as poverty, exposure, and climate risk rather than GDP. This will help ensure the most vulnerable receive prioritized support.

At SB 62, Bangladesh is urging to ensure NCQG is ambitious, equitable, and delivered through transparent, grant-based mechanisms with clear allocations for adaptation and loss & damage, prioritized access for vulnerable countries, and a robust accountability structure. 

Bangladesh will engage in dialogue to support the rapid disbursement and operational clarity of the Loss and Damage Fund as approved at COP28. 

The timelines for substantial pledges and operational modalities should be provided by COP30. Bangladesh is representing LDCs, CVF, and G77+China as a key moral voice demanding fairness, urgency, and equity. 

Bangladesh wants SB 62 to agree on establishing timelines for substantial pledges and operational modalities by COP30, strengthening bodies like the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) to monitor NCQG progress, as well as mandated review cycles to assess and adjust targets and access frameworks. The goal is to embed these principles early to enable concrete implementation in the 2025–2030 finance cycle and safeguard the resilience of climate-impacted communities of the country.