Media Advisory

For Immediate Release

Delay, Distract, Destruct, Repeat–

Global North governments abandoning climate action at home and at UN climate talks

Bonn, Germany— The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Bonn, Germany (SB64) are headed into the final days. In these rooms, governments continue to construct the foundation of international climate collaboration in an era of climate crisis. The details of many of the essential building blocks are still being debated– including on climate finance, just transition, false solutions, historical responsibility, agriculture and a fossil fuel phase-out. 

Global North governments like the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union are historically most responsible for the climate crisis. The Global North should be the most invested in laying the groundwork to ensure we can build a strong and sustainable house of climate action. Instead, their extraction, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, racism and war-mongering has fuelled this planet to the brink of collapse, risking hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods. According to the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) enshrined in the UNFCCC, Global North governments should be leading the way to a climate just world by doing their fair share of climate action, delivering their climate debt, rapidly enacting just transitions and supporting Global South countries and communities in doing the same.  

Instead of acting like the climate champions they proclaim they are, Global North governments are ramping up a predictable yet inexcusable strategy of “Delay, Distract, Destruct, Repeat.” In the case of the United States, it hasn’t even officially shown up to the table, yet is still pulling the strings behind the scenes. Meanwhile the United Kingdom. Japan and the European Union are rolling back their already very weak climate commitments at home and reneging on all of their responsibilities in the global house of climate action. 

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) to learn more about how Global North governments are destroying international collaboration here in Bonn and delaying climate action at home, and what can be done to hold them accountable. 

WHEN: Monday 15 June 2026, 11-11.30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Leon Sealey-Huggins, War on Want
• Victor Menotti, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
• Tobias Holle, Shifting Advocacy
• Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos, ShiftUS, Global Afro Descendants
• Moderated by Nona Chai, Just Transition Alliance

CONTACT: [email protected]

For more detail on DCJ’s demands across all topics on the agenda for Bonn, read  DCJ’s SB64 Position Paper: Advancing Climate Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis