30 Jun 2025
At the June 2025 Bonn Climate Conference, business leaders led by the ICC called for urgent action to remove regulatory and financial barriers, scale up adaptation, and support high-integrity carbon markets. With COP30 nearing, they urged governments to align with 1.5°C goals and shift from talk to action, emphasizing that the private sector is ready but needs the right conditions.
How business voices shaped the climate agenda in Bonn—and what’s next on the road to COP30 in Belém
The June 2025 Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB62) marked a pivotal checkpoint on the road to COP30. With rising climate impacts, growing geopolitical tensions, and increasing scrutiny of implementation gaps, business and industry leaders—represented through the UNFCCC Business and Industry NGO constituency (BINGO)—played a visible and engaged role in the process. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), as the leading global business representative, was at the heart of these efforts.
Business Speaks Up at Opening and Closing Plenaries
Rob Cameron, Chair of the ICC Environment Commission, delivered the BINGO opening statement, raising urgent concerns over delays in agenda adoption and calling for accelerated action across the climate agenda. “Ten years after Paris, COP30 must deliver—and it must do so for the real economy,” he emphasized.
Four key points framed the private sector’s intervention:
NDC Implementation: Businesses called on governments to translate Global Stocktake findings into ambitious, actionable Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aligned with 1.5°C, with meaningful business engagement in their design and delivery.
Adaptation: While mitigation remains critical, businesses urged for a robust framework to scale up private-sector-supported adaptation solutions.
Finance: Echoing the Presidency’s USD 1.3 trillion roadmap, the private sector stressed that unlocking capital will require removing regulatory barriers and enhancing risk-sharing mechanisms.
Carbon Markets: ICC strongly supported high-integrity carbon markets and rapid implementation of Article 6 as tools to drive finance to where it's most needed.
At the closing plenary, the tone was cautiously optimistic. Delegates had worked constructively, but “significant divergences persist,” ICC noted. “Now is the time to transform promises made into real-world implementation,” the statement concluded.
Financing Climate Action: Private Sector Ready—but Held Back
During the Presidency-led consultation on the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 Trillion, ICC highlighted the urgent need to align financial frameworks with climate goals. As Beth Burks (S&P Global), speaking for BINGO, noted: “We fully recognize the role we play in reaching the USD 1.3 trillion goal—but the current system is holding us back.”
ICC’s contribution to the discussion outlined three priority areas:
Enabling Environments: Policy coherence and predictability—especially strong offtake markets and stable regulatory frameworks—are prerequisites for unlocking private investment in developing economies.
Reforming Development Finance: Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) must become real catalysts for private finance by accepting greater risk and investing in project development capacity.
Prudential Regulation Reform: Current banking regulations penalize climate investment in emerging markets. ICC proposed a structured dialogue with regulators to explore targeted reforms, estimating that such changes could quadruple available bank capital for climate projects.
ICC has now published this paper, setting out concrete steps to realign financial regulation with climate ambition. Read it here.
Just Transition: Making Climate Action Fair and Inclusive
ICC and BINGO welcomed progress on the Just Transition Work Programme, while stressing that implementation must now take center stage. In its statement, business emphasized that a truly just transition must:
Be holistic and inclusive, engaging governments, large companies, SMEs, and local innovators.
Provide the most vulnerable communities with the tools, skills, and opportunities to thrive.
Avoid unintended cross-border consequences, especially for SMEs in developing countries.
Business urged policymakers to ensure predictability and coherence across policies, warning that fragmented or duplicative efforts could slow investment and innovation.
“There is no silver bullet,” the ICC statement noted. “Efforts must be tailored to national and local realities to be truly effective.”
Observer Engagement and Implementation Gaps
ICC also weighed in on the Arrangements for Intergovernmental Meetings (AIM) discussions, advocating for more inclusive and efficient observer engagement. Suggestions included shifting some Action Agenda activities to Regional Climate Weeks and leveraging expert dialogues to integrate real-world insights into the process.
“The Brazilian concept of Mutirão—working together for the common good—captures what is needed now,” said Agnes Vinblad, representing the United States Council for International Business. “No one actor can tackle the climate challenge alone. We must unite.”
What’s Next? Belém Must Deliver for the Real Economy
With COP30 in Belém just months away, ICC’s message is clear: it’s time to move from negotiation to implementation. This means:
Delivering updated NDCs aligned with 1.5°C.
Advancing robust frameworks on adaptation and just transition.
Fixing regulatory and financial barriers to unlock private capital.
Accelerating Article 6 implementation and voluntary carbon market integrity.
ICC stands ready to support the COP Presidencies and Parties in translating words into action. As underscored in the closing statement: “Our shared climate ambitions demand collaborative solutions. The private sector is ready to do its part—but it cannot do it alone.”