JTA Executive Director José Bravo attends a UNFCCC Intersessional meeting in Bonn, Germany, June 2025. Photo Credit: Fernando Tormos-Aponte

JTA’s Executive Director, José Bravo, and I attended the UN Climate Bonn talks in June 2025 to continue advancing the fight for a just transition decision later this year at the UNFCCC COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil. It is widely expected that this year will be a big year for our fight for a just transition. Movements are pressuring governments to feel the urgency of adopting a strong just transition decision during the COP30 climate talks. The COP30 Presidency has stated that achieving a just transition will be one of the priorities for the talks. The intersessional meeting in Bonn set the stage for that, as support grows for many of our just transition priorities, including participatory decision-making processes, funding for a just transition, human rights, and the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

At JTA, we believe that people power will deliver the just transition. Anything short of systems change will fail to meet the principles of just transition. This is why we are steadfast in our efforts to build grassroots and global support for the just transition. Building on a long and rich tradition of building unity and alignment for climate justice among frontline workers and communities, we are supporting the planning of the Peoples’ Summit with a particular focus on the Just Transition axis. The People’s Summit is a growing formation seeking to bring together movements from all over the world to articulate clear demands for climate justice and mainstream these demands, all too often excluded from the closed-door deals that characterize UN climate talks. Within the People’s Summit, we aim to create the space needed for continued dialogues on how we can collectively advance and achieve just transitions globally. These dialogues inform our efforts within and outside the UNFCCC talks. 

During the Bonn climate talks, we held a webinar and a press conference to report on our efforts back to our allies, bring attention to the demands emerging from the Peoples’ Summit, and invite more movements to join. These events prioritized the voices of Indigenous Peoples, grassroots groups, and allies in the Global South, building on the leadership of our allies in the Peoples’ Summit, La Vía Campesina, the Movimiento de Afectados por Represas, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ). 

Speakers prepare to present during the JTA-organized Bonn webinar in June 2025. Photo Credit: Indigenous Environmental Network

Within the Bonn climate talks, we continue to broaden the pathway for a just transition and stop the harms committed through delays and the promotion of false solutions. In preparation for Bonn, we helped develop a call for the formation of a new participatory institution that facilitates policy coordination, knowledge and resource exchanges, and implementation of just transitions globally. I was honored to reference this call when I delivered an intervention on behalf of the environmental NGO constituency during the just transition negotiations in Bonn. We used this intervention to stand in solidarity with our allies and their communities while calling for a strong institutional arrangement grounded in just transition principles. We called for specificity in the decision in establishing “a coordination body that enables the formal representation of groups affected and rightsholders that must be involved in the decision-making of the principles, practices, and processes of the just transition.” 

We face a challenging road ahead. The preliminary text that may serve as a basis of a just transition decision in Belém during the UNFCCC COP30 talks is still lacking many JTA and our allies’ priorities. For instance, internationally recognized principles of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent and the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples are not included in the draft. There is still no clear timeline for a just transition or a recognition of the impact of extractive industries. The draft also includes false solutions like nature-based solutions. 

During the Bonn talks, I also presented a case study for the Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impacts of the Implementation of Response Measures (KCI). Developed in collaboration with the Los Jardines Institute (LJI), this study highlights the challenges and opportunities that LJI and its allies face in pursuing a just transition in the New Mexico region. We point to how the coalition-building work of the New Mexico No False Solutions and the Justice 40 coalitions helped block the local implementation of false solutions and promoted the local adoption of just transition policies and processes. In conducting this study, we aim to collect, preserve, and promote the community-generated knowledge needed to inform broader-scale systems change efforts for a just transition. 

In a time riddled with despair, just transition grows quickly as a unifying vision and reality that we will fight to bring about. We continue forging solidarities on the path for a just transition decision in Belém!