The ceasefire has the world breathing a cautious sigh of relief. But the danger is not over: even with an immediate peace and open sea lanes, hunger and poverty threaten to escalate.
When the World Pulls Back but the Crises Don't: A Call for Courageous Climate Action
Amid a web of global crises, the Bonn Climate Conference must not become a stage for empty promises. We call on policymakers to lay the groundwork for real change.
We are living through a polycrisis. Temperatures are shattering records and climate impacts are escalating. An El Niño event is likely to develop later in the year, the number of armed conflicts is at a record high, and the war in Iran is threatening to turn a short-term energy and fertilizer shock into widespread crop failures and a food crisis.
These are not isolated emergencies—they are cascading, interconnected shocks that amplify one another and call for greater-than-ever coordinated and holistic responses. What we witness instead is a dangerous retreat: major players and donors are stepping back and the development sector is being transformed not by strategic intent, but by reactive geopolitics and budget pressures.
The Bonn Climate Conference (SB64) in June is a litmus test for the international community’s commitment to multilateral solutions and ambitious climate policy.
Our demands to policy makers
→ Bonn must not become a forum for the appearance of ambition
Centering food systems in climate policy
Food systems sit at the heart of both the climate crisis and its solutions. Agrifood systems account for approximately one third of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions while being highly vulnerable to climate impacts. They provide a livelihood for 1.3 billion people, employing nearly 40% of the global workforce (FAO, 2024). Transforming the way we produce, distribute and consume food must not be treated as a side issue. It must become a central pillar of climate policy.
Sustainable food systems transformation offers co-benefits across adaptation and mitigation while offering stability and contributing to a just transition. It can reduce the reliance on fossil-based fertilizers, sequester soil organic carbon, restore soil health, increase drought resistance, improve food and nutrition security, diversify livelihoods and strengthen local markets and trade.
Yet, political interest in food systems transformation is waning even though the war in Iran illustrates the risks fossil fuel dependence poses to global food and energy security. Agrifood systems remain severely underfunded, receiving only around 7% (94.9 billion USD) of total global climate finance with only a fraction reaching the most vulnerable regions. Sub-Sahara Africa receives only 8% of agrifood climate finance (CLIC, 2025). At the same time, finance flows that have a direct negative impact on nature, including environmentally harmful subsidies such as those that artificially lower the price of fossil fuels, were estimated at 7.3 trillion USD in 2023 (UNEP, 2026).
Bold policy change is needed: one that boosts long-term investments in climate resilience and poverty eradication alongside short-term response capacities. Policy change that halts nature-negative investments and phases out fossil fuels.
Public finance as a cornerstone of climate justice
Instead, we are witnessing a contraction. Development and humanitarian budgets are shrinking. The climate crisis is losing ground to other shocks and pressures. Geopolitical tensions are “securitizing” the development discourse while domestic interests are gaining prominence over value-based international cooperation.
Policymakers increasingly point to the private sector as a source of climate finance and to public funds as a lever to mobilize private capital. The idea behind this is to use public funds to cushion potential losses, creating incentives for private investments in areas that would otherwise be too risky. Mobilizing private flows is a necessary complement to public provision but cannot be a substitute for it.
Private investment follows returns—fair climate finance must follow needs. Adaptation measures such as protecting smallholder farmers from erratic rainfall, building community-level early warning systems, restoring degraded soils, or supporting workers through a just transition away from fossil fueldependent livelihoods rarely generate the kind of profitable returns that attract private capital.
Adaptation often serves the public good and must also be delivered in nonmarket sectors as well as fragile and conflict-affected contexts where risk is high, and profit margins are thin or non-existent. Waiting for the market to fill the adaptation finance gap means waiting indefinitely while millions of people, who bear the least responsibility for the climate crisis, face its worst consequences. Channeling climate finance primarily through debt-generating instruments does not close the finance gap. It deepens the injustice.
Negotiating for international ambition must be matched with domestic delivery and linked to international responsibility and a new and ambitious climate finance target.
Dunja Krause Senior Policy Advisor, WelthungerhilfePublic climate finance must therefore remain a cornerstone of climate action. This means prioritizing grants and non-debt-creating mechanisms, particularly for adaptation, and ensuring that finance reaches fragile and conflict-affected areas, which are most often excluded from climate finance flows despite facing the greatest risks.
And it means that finance must be transparent, predictable, and locally directed—not conditioned on the preferences of private investors or designed around instruments optimized for return rather than resilience.
Germany’s opportunity to lead with coherence
Germany presents itself internationally as a champion of climate action and a reliable partner for the Global South. That reputation is a valuable diplomatic asset and requires coherence. Negotiating for international ambition must be matched with domestic delivery and linked to international responsibility and a new and ambitious climate finance target.
At the moment, experts criticize the lack of ambition in domestic climate policy as the recently adopted Climate Protection Program 2026 does not consider the latest proposals for energy policy bills that place greater emphasis on fossil fuels, for example. In addition, shrinking development budgets are curtailing the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s ability to act as the steadfast, long-term partner that effective climate cooperation requires.
Without a coherent approach, Germany risks trading its credibility as a climate leader for the appearance of action—sufficient for diplomatic posturing, but insufficient to deliver meaningful change for the people who need it most.
What Bonn must deliver
SB64 is a technical session—but technical decisions carry political weight. Welthungerhilfe (WHH) urges negotiators and development actors to resist the pull toward what is easy to fund, easy to communicate, and easy to claim as impact. School meals are good. But they are no substitute for the slower, more structural work of transforming food systems, building adaptive capacity or supporting a just transition.
Addressing the interconnected crises of hunger, poverty and climate means more investment in systems and robust institutional structures, not less. It means recognizing food systems transformation as effective climate solution. It means holding the line on public finance and multilateral cooperation particularly when domestic political pressures point in a different direction.
Our demands to policy makers
Bonn must not become a forum for the appearance of ambition. It must deliver the foundations for real change. We therefore call on member states, and Germany and the EU in particular, to:
1. Protect and scale up public climate finance. Germany should commit at least 12 billion Euro per year from the public budget by 2030, prioritizing grants over debt (especially for adaptation).
2. Put food systems transformation at the heart of climate policy. Food systems transformation must become a central, well-funded pillar of Germany's climate cooperation reflecting its critical role and potential to deliver on both climate and development.
3. Champion the phase-out of fossil fuels. Germany should lead international efforts for phasing out fossil fuels and ending fossil fuel dependence in food and energy systems.
4. Match diplomatic ambition with domestic delivery. To remain a credible partner, Germany must strengthen domestic mitigation efforts instead of watering down existing legislation. Germany should further develop a coherent climate-development policy that ensures BMZ has the longterm, predictable resources needed to deliver on international commitments.
