JTA, U.S. Climate Action Network, United Steelworkers Local 675, Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica, La Vía Campesina, Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate and Health Organization, and The Chisholm Legacy Project presented just transition movement demands during a media briefing in Bonn, Germany, June 2026. Photo credit: USCAN

At the SB64 UN Bonn climate talks, the process to flesh out the functions of the Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) and to finalize its establishment was fraught with conflict. In the end, parties failed to produce a draft decision on how to operationalize the BAM. 

Last year at COP30, grassroots movements and civil society members fought hard for the BAM, also known as the Just Transition Mechanism, and won a decision from the parties to develop the BAM. 

Civil society and Global South countries have positioned the fulfillment of human rights, labor rights, Indigenous Peoples’ inherent, distinct, and collective rights, the demands of Afro-Descendant communities, nationally determined pathways, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as foundational to the mechanism. Aligning with these focus areas, the BAM must follow Just Transition Principles and Indigenous Just Transition Principles.

At SB64, Global North countries, such as Japan and the United Kingdom, delayed the negotiations significantly by claiming that mapping the existing work on just transition within UN bodies should be a prerequisite to developing the mechanism. Furthermore, developed countries asserted that the mechanism’s mandate is limited to knowledge sharing, flouting developing countries’ demands for means of implementation to finance just transition projects.

A just and equitable phase out of fossil fuels necessitates the redirection of money from the Global North and polluting industries. The Global North has a historic responsibility to provide direct, grant-based, non-debt-creating funding to the Global South through a community-controlled climate reparations process that centers Black liberation, reparative justice, Indigenous Peoples’ inherent, distinct and collective rights, and the demands of those most harmed by the climate crisis and its colonial basis. 

Civil society members participate in a banner drop event during the Bonn Climate Talks, June 2026. Image credit: Hilary Kung

Most of the just transition negotiations at SB64 focused on the terms of reference for the review of the UN Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP). The JTWP’s effectiveness, efficiency, and potential for continuation will be reviewed at COP31 this November. The question of whether to link the JTWP and the BAM remains, noting that ambitious components of the JTWP could fortify the BAM. 

Attendees also discussed key messages from the fifth dialogue of the JTWP on agriculture and oceans, which took place in April 2026. During that session, Jesús Vázquez from La Vía Campesina delivered an intervention on behalf of the Environmental Non-Governmental Organization (ENGO) constituency that highlighted agroecology, food sovereignty, and Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge as essential to just transition. 

A draft decision on how to operationalize the BAM was not reached at SB64. However, the JTWP co-chairs produced an informal note that will contribute to the draft decision to be considered during COP31, the next opportunity to solidify operationalizing the BAM. Parties and civil society will be able to provide written submissions on this subject until a month in advance of COP31, and these submissions will help to inform the draft decision.

Importantly, the presence of nature-based solutions, blue carbon, multinational development banks, and blended finance in the co-chairs’ informal note raises alarm for the most climate affected peoples, workers, and communities, who have been exploited by market-based schemes. These “solutions” falsely purport to address climate change while promoting business as usual. On the road to COP31 and beyond, resisting false solutions to the climate crisis will continue to be a key battleground. 

To ensure that the BAM will be fully operational by 2027, civil society is calling for just transition to be prioritized for intersessional work before COP31 with the understanding that civil society and developing countries must be active participants and leaders in the intersessional process. 

The struggles of and solutions proposed by workers in formal and informal settings, Indigenous Peoples, smallholders, landless people, pastoralists, fisherfolk, Afro-Descendants, women and gender diverse peoples, people with disabilities, youth, and all communities disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis must continue to guide the implementation of the BAM. Together, we will ensure that the BAM delivers tangible support and funding to facilitate a just transition away from fossil fuels and other extractive industries for peoples and communities worldwide.