Bonn, 23 June 2025. The UNFCCC has reached a critical breaking point. Climate negotiations have systematically failed to deliver climate justice and undermined international law, from marginalising vulnerable States, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society, to allowing the richest countries and the largest historical polluters to avoid legal obligations and accountability.
The massive expansion of COPs has not translated into better and more inclusive decisions, to the contrary: it has further opened the door for the fossil fuel industry and other major emitters, allowing them to continue polluting with impunity and proposing costly illusions to greenwash their image.
To add fuel to the fire, climate talks have been hosted in countries with problematic human rights records and significant fossil fuel interests. Global climate governance is increasingly perceived as out of touch and running out of relevance and trust.
With this proposal, FIDH and over 200 organisations come together with a collective call – one for an urgent, drastic, and comprehensive change of pace and process within the UNFCCC and complementary action outside of it.
Our collective demands are clear.
– Restoring the balance of power and reforming decision-making so that the climate regime is coherent and favours action instead of allowing major polluters to hold up progress that is essential to communities’ survival.
– Making negotiations open and transparent, and advancing implementation by ensuring that States and other actors are accountable for their actions.
– Protecting the climate talks from conflicts of interest and ending the undue influence that polluting industries – most responsible for the climate crisis – currently have on climate action.
– Guaranteeing the basic minimum for effective negotiations: respect for and the protection of the human rights of all, including the rights to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and meaningful participation.
Read the full statement here.