For many Pakistanis, the annual climate negotiations held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) often seem distant from everyday realities.
Discussions on adaptation indicators, technical roadmaps, transparency frameworks or climate finance architecture may seem disconnected from the immediate concerns of heat waves in Punjab, floods in Sindh, droughts in Balochistan, melting glaciers in Gilgit-Baltistan or growing water insecurity across the Indus Basin.
However, the results of the 64th Session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB64) of the UNFCCC, held in Bonn, Germany (June 8-18), may prove more consequential for countries like Pakistan than many headline-grabbing climate summits. Unlike the Conference of the Parties (COP), where political statements often predominate, the Bonn sessions are where the architecture of climate governance is built.
SB64 was not a meeting that produced dramatic announcements or big financial promises. Rather, it signaled something much more significant: the global climate regime is entering an era in which implementation, accountability and measurement are becoming the new battlegrounds of climate diplomacy.
For more than a decade, climate negotiations focused primarily on setting goals. Countries negotiated temperature targets, adaptation frameworks, loss and damage mechanisms and climate finance commitments.
Those founding debates largely culminated in the Paris Agreement, the Global Stocktake and the adoption of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience. In SB64, negotiators shifted their attention from what should be accomplished to how progress will be measured, monitored, reviewed, and reported.
The most visible example was the advancement of the Global Adaptation Goal (GGA). Negotiators agreed to establish a Technical Working Group to develop methodologies and improve the metadata behind the recently adopted Belém Adaptation Indicators.
While this may seem very technical, the implications are profound because adaptation has historically suffered from a measurement problem. Unlike mitigation, where emissions reductions can be quantified relatively easily, the results of adaptation are often difficult to measure. The new indicators will eventually influence how adaptation progress is assessed globally and, more importantly, how adaptation finance is allocated.
This development should be of particular interest to Pakistan. The country has consistently argued that it is among the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world. However, vulnerability alone is no longer enough in climate negotiations.
As the global climate governance system becomes increasingly data-driven, countries will need robust evidence, indicators and reporting systems to demonstrate adaptation needs, resilience gaps and financing requirements. In many ways, the future landscape of climate diplomacy will increasingly reward those countries that can produce credible data and translate vulnerability into measurable results.
SB64 also demonstrated the growing importance of oceans, food systems, climate science and nature-based solutions within the climate agenda. The Oceans and Climate Change Dialogue gained prominence as countries explored the role of marine ecosystems, coastal resilience, and blue economy investments in climate action.
Discussions on research and systematic observation highlighted the importance of climate science, early warning systems and observation networks. Discussions on agriculture and food security continued to focus on resilience, smallholder farmers, and climate impacts across food systems.
For Pakistan, these developments present both opportunities and challenges. Historically, Pakistan’s climate diplomacy has been heavily influenced by floods, glaciers, and narratives of loss and damage.
While these issues remain critical, the evolution of the climate agenda requires a broader strategic approach. Pakistan must strengthen its commitment to water governance, food security, drought resilience, heat adaptation, climate-health linkages, urban resilience and climate security.
Perhaps the most important political message from Bonn was that the trust deficit between developed and developing countries remains unresolved.
Throughout the debates on adaptation, just transition, financing and implementation, developing countries repeatedly raised concerns about the insufficiency of climate finance and the growing tendency of developed countries to prioritize reporting frameworks, methodologies and private financing solutions over direct public financial support.
This tension is unlikely to disappear before COP31. In fact, it may intensify. While developed countries increasingly frame climate action through financial system reforms, investment mobilization and private sector engagement, developing countries continue to emphasize obligations related to public finances, technology transfer and capacity development. The fundamental question remains the same: who will pay the transition and adaptation costs faced by vulnerable nations?
For Pakistan, this debate is particularly relevant. The country faces estimated climate financing needs of $348 billion through 2030, while battling debt pressures, fiscal constraints, water stress, food insecurity and growing climate-induced economic losses.
Climate finance is therefore not simply an environmental issue, but has increasingly become a development, economic and national security issue.
Looking ahead to COP31, several issues are likely to dominate the negotiations. Adaptation financing will continue to be a central point of contention, particularly as countries seek to operationalize the Global Adaptation Goal.
The review of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience and the refinement of the Belém adaptation indicators will shape future debates on adaptation accountability. Negotiations on a Just Transition are expected to intensify as developing countries push for stronger commitments on financing, technology transfer and equitable economic transformation.
The funding needed by the Global South to achieve a just transition is estimated at $2.5 trillion a year, but no mega-grants have been offered so far. Oceans, biodiversity, food systems and climate-resilient development pathways are also likely to gain greater importance.
In this context, Pakistan must rethink its climate diplomacy strategy. Instead of approaching the negotiations solely as a climate-vulnerable country seeking support, Pakistan should position itself as a bridge builder capable of connecting multiple global crises.
The country must elevate climate diplomacy to the same strategic level as economic, commercial and foreign policy engagement. Therefore, it needs a permanent ecosystem of negotiators, researchers, scientists and policy experts working year-round to support the country’s positions. Because vulnerability must be translated into data, numbers, evidence and viable proposals that can withstand technical scrutiny.
This creates an opportunity for what could be described as “multi-crisis diplomacy.” Pakistan’s climate diplomacy should increasingly connect climate negotiations with debates on water governance, urban resilience, regional stability, food security, biodiversity conservation, debt sustainability and development financing. Such an approach would better reflect the realities facing many countries in the Global South and allow Pakistan to exert influence beyond traditional narratives of climate vulnerability.
Pakistan must also continue to strengthen its participation within the G77 and China, Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) and other coalitions of developing countries.
At the same time, it should build issue-based partnerships with least developed countries, small island developing States and climate-vulnerable nations on adaptation, finance and resilience. Strategic partnerships around water, food systems, mountain ecosystems and climate security could further raise Pakistan’s diplomatic profile.
Furthermore, Pakistan does not have the luxury of waking up to climate diplomacy a few weeks before every COP. By then, many alliances, negotiating positions and political trade-offs have already been formed. Effective climate diplomacy requires year-round engagement, coalition building, and technical preparation if Pakistan is to help shape outcomes rather than simply respond to them.
Most importantly, for a country that consistently ranks among the most climate-vulnerable nations, Pakistan’s goal should not just be visibility, but rather influence.
The measure of success at COP31 will not be the size of Pakistan’s pavilion, but the extent to which Pakistan helps shape discussions on adaptation financing, contributes to the evolution of the Global Adaptation Goal, influences conversations on water security and climate resilience, and forms coalitions capable of advancing the interests of vulnerable developing countries.
The Bonn negotiations revealed that the climate regime is entering a new phase. The era of framework negotiation is gradually giving way to an era of implementation negotiation. The countries that succeed in this environment will not necessarily be those that speak the loudest about vulnerability. They will be the ones who can translate vulnerability into evidence, coalitions, policy proposals and diplomatic influence.
The real question on the road from Bonn to COP31 is whether Pakistan will sit at the tables where decisions are made or whether it will continue to sit among those for whom decisions are made.
The writer is an environmental scientist and heads the ecological sustainability and circular economy program at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of PakGazette.tv.
Originally published in The News
