As world leaders, civil society, and negotiators gather in Bonn for SB62 (16–26 June 2025), it’s easy to overlook these mid-year climate talks. But don’t be fooled, this is where the groundwork for bigger progress is laid.
The SBs, short for Subsidiary Bodies, are mid-year UN climate negotiations that take place between the annual COP conferences in Bonn, Germany. They prepare the ground for the COP negotiations – providing technical expertise, facilitating negotiations, and shaping the agenda for the larger COP meetings. They are very important negotiations and a place where advocacy happens, because big climate decisions don’t just happen at COPs, they’re the result of a lot of quiet, steady work.
The Paris Agreement, for example, was shaped in sessions in Bonn, Geneva, and beyond, long before it was signed in Paris. Meetings like SB62 might not make headlines, but they’re where real progress begins, where ideas are tested, language is negotiated, and the path to potential agreements, like from COP30, is built step by step. Simply put, the SB meetings are a cornerstone of climate policy-making; much of the UN climate process wouldn’t function without them.
Our Advocacy & Policy Advisor, Jule Schnakenberg, has been part of the climate conferences for several years now, with her first COP being the COP21 in Paris, where the Paris Agreement was concluded. She’s been advocating for climate justice since she was 11. Now, she has transformed into a formidable climate lawyer and advocate, actively contributing to a historic climate case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – read more here. Currently pursuing a Master’s in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford, Jule brings knowledge and passion to the fight for climate justice on a national and international level.
Together with Jule, we’re reporting from SB62 in Bonn, and we asked her a few questions.
What does advocacy mean to you, and how do you personally define it?
Policy and advocacy work means that you engage with decision-makers on an issue that matters to the people that you represent. For us at Plant-for-the-Planet, it means that we advocate for forest protection, conservation, and restoration. And equality, because we are climate empowerment champions, we’re advocating for more youth inclusion and for climate education across curricula and also outside of school settings.
Why is it important to advocate for climate justice today?
Around the world, we’re seeing the impacts of the climate crisis in many different ways – we see extreme weather events, and then slow onset events, those are for example soil erosion and slow sea level rise. This drastically impacts communities, and yet in these halls (at climate conferences), we see insufficient climate action by those historically responsible for these climate harms. We don’t just need any action at any cost, but we need climate justice, which means taking historical emissions into account, equity and fairness principles. It’s not really part of this process, but there are a lot of civil society organizations advocating for climate justice principles to be part of global climate governance, and that’s what Plant-for-the-Planet does too.
One could argue that the processes at climate conferences haven’t been the best at delivering climate action and climate justice for the most vulnerable. What is your take on that?
These climate conferences take place twice a year, once in June in Bonn, and the other one is hosted by different regional groups every year . It’s true that this process really has not delivered for the most vulnerable and for those who really need climate action and justice. It’s (often) slow and frustrating. We need a radical shift in that, but there is a really dedicated and strong civil society and Indigenous People and Local Community representatives working for more ambitious climate action every year.
You’ve been part of many climate conferences over the last decade. With the slow progress, what keeps you going?
For me, it’s the civil society and Indigenous Peoples working together with the climate negotiators for a better outcome. That keeps me coming back, even though sometimes it may seem like we’re taking baby steps forward, and three steps back, but we absolutely need to continue meeting and working together for climate justice, and these conferences are sadly one of the limited places to do so.
Is there anything else you’d like to share, something you wish more people knew about advocacy or the climate movement?
We absolutely need the small changes that you do every day, but we also need big, systematic, structural changes, including how capitalism, colonialism, and racism interplay and how we work together within international climate governance. So, the small level changes and the very big picture changes, we need all of that at the very same time.
From quiet negotiation rooms in Bonn to bold action on the world stage, the path to climate justice is long, but it is being built, step by step, by people like Jule and countless others who refuse to give up. It’s this steady, tireless commitment that keeps the momentum alive. And if there’s one thing SB62 reminds us of, it’s that even behind closed doors, powerful change is possible, when we show up, speak up, and stand together.
