Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

As climate negotiators enter the second and final week of talks in Bonn ahead of COP30 in Brazil this November, more than 200 civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ groups are calling for bold reforms to make the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) more effective in tackling the global climate crisis.

Their demands are outlined in the United Call for an Urgent Reform of the UN Climate Talks, a proposal centered on five key pillars aimed at transforming the way global climate negotiations function. These include restoring equity and power, ending corporate capture, ensuring transparency, upholding human rights, and strengthening international governance.

“For thirty years, the climate negotiations have systematically failed to deliver climate justice, undermined international law, and allowed the fossil fuel industry to write the rules,” said Lien Vandamme, Senior Campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “The absence of agreed procedures for decision-making allows big polluting countries to hold the negotiations hostage. The lack of accountability gives a false sense of impunity.”

The call to reform also targets the increasing influence of corporate interests at the annual COP meetings, calling for the end of the “trade show” atmosphere and the implementation of a framework to manage conflicts of interest.

“Thousands of people converge on climate COPs annually, hoping for decisions that will keep 1.5°C in sight,” noted An Lambrechts, Biodiversity Politics Expert at Greenpeace International. “But that’s impossible if we don’t act to end nature destruction and fossil use at the same time. This means bridges with the CBD and other multilateral environmental agreements must be strengthened with urgency.”

Over the past three decades, greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, intensifying the impacts of climate change, particularly in the Global South. Despite numerous high-level meetings and pledges, progress has been too slow, and many believe systemic change is overdue.

“For 30 years, the UNFCCC has failed to catalyze meaningful climate action,” said Rachitaa Gupta, Global Coordinator of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ). “Inside the halls of the UNFCCC, it may seem as though it is just another year of business as usual. But outside these halls, this could not be further from the truth. At home, our communities are enduring incalculable loss and damage. At home, emissions are reaching record highs. For many, the climate crisis is a fight for life and death.”

Among the proposed reforms, civil society is calling for the 198 UNFCCC Parties to adopt majority-based decision-making when consensus cannot be reached, a shift advocates say is necessary to overcome political deadlocks.

“This year is key,” emphasized Vandamme, “with several international courts working on climate advisory opinions. The time is now for the UNFCCC to become the climate regime it should have been for the past decades, one centered around international obligations to prevent dangerous climate change and remedy related harm. All Parties must come together and radically choose fossil-free climate multilateralism rooted in justice.”

With Brazil set to host COP30 in Belém, expectations for leadership are high. Camila Mikkie, Officer at Conectas Direitos Humanos, underscored Brazil’s role in advancing the needed reforms: “Brazil has placed itself at the centre of an important and necessary debate on reforming our climate regime at a pivotal moment of paradigm shift… The world now expects Brazil to lead the necessary changes.”

The United Call is endorsed by over 200 organizations and major networks, including Climate Action Network (CAN), the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ), the Children and Youth Constituency (YOUNGO), and the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC). Supporting groups include Amnesty International, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and the Center for International Environmental Law.

As COP30 approaches, the message from civil society is clear: the current system is broken, and only a deep and inclusive transformation of the climate talks can deliver justice and survival for the planet.