The Current Column

UNFCCC SB64 opens today in Bonn

Who gets a seat at the table? Bonn's climate talks have a visa problem

Wagner, Niklas
The Current Column (2026)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), The Current Column of 8 June 2026

Bonn, 08 June 2026. Every year, the world's climate negotiators gather in Bonn. Every year, visa barriers exclude Global South delegates — undermining Germany's commitment to inclusive multilateralism.

Today, the 64th session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies (SB64) opens at Bonn's World Conference Center. Over 5,000 delegates, government negotiators, and civil society representatives gather here to prepare COP31, taking place later this year in Turkey. The Subsidiary Bodies are the engine room of global climate diplomacy, where technical groundwork is laid, positions are negotiated, and coalitions are built. Both, party delegates and non-party stakeholders are formally welcome – but participants from the Global South face a range of obstacles to participation: accreditation, travel costs, accommodation, and visas. The latter is distinct as it could be addressed directly by Germany as permanent UNFCCC host.

Visa barriers to Global South participation in climate meetings are neither new nor unique to Germany. As far back as 2008, IIED raised concerns about the exclusion of delegates from least developed countries from UN climate negotiations in Europe due to visa delays. For the Bonn sessions SB60 in 2024, 223 delegates from Africa and Asia were documented to experience difficulties of getting visas in time or at all: 25 were denied outright, 167 applications were left unprocessed and 37 receiving visas delayed – leaving countries including Burundi, Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco, and Rwanda without a single representative in the opening days. In 2025, reported cases had risen to 298. The recurring reasons include refused appointments, requirements to apply in distant third countries, and denials citing alleged doubts about return intentions. Frustration about this has been voiced frequently, by delegates in the closing plenary of the Bonn sessions or, in a less diplomatic tone by the civil society network CAN, calling on Germany to “end its visa war on African Delegates”. 

Behind these figures are people with formal accreditation, a concrete work plan, and often full funding, who are still unable to attend. As a young delegate from Asia described: "Definitely visa challenges are one of the biggest barriers I have. Coming from the Global South, we have to spend like two to three months just running to the embassy for a visa, requesting it, appealing again and again. Many of my colleagues didn't get the visa, even they had full funding, even a complete plan on how we were going to work together — they were not able to be here." This is not an individual misfortune. It is a structural barrier that excludes precisely those voices, negotiators from the least developed countries, young activists, and frontline community representatives, whose presence is critical to the legitimacy of the multilateral climate process.

The argument that visa barriers are administratively unavoidable does not hold. Host countries of recent COPs in the UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil all introduced dedicated fast-track procedures for accredited UNFCCC participants. Crucially, so have Schengen member states. Article 25(1) of the Schengen Visa Code explicitly permits member states to issue visas where "international obligations" require it. For COP21 in Paris, France used this provision to grant accredited participants short-stay visas upon presenting their accreditation letter alone, exempt from standard supporting documents. For COP25, within barely four weeks of notice, Spain issued centralised instructions to all 182 of its consulates worldwide to guarantee a speedy procedure and negotiated agreements with other Schengen states for countries without Spanish representation.

Before the 2026 SB64, over 80 signatories, ranging from Amnesty International to the Zimbabwe People's Land Rights Movement, reminded Germany as home to the Bonn sessions in an open letter that the credibility of multilateral processes rests on who is in the room. Inclusive multilateralism is not only a matter of what is negotiated — it is a matter of who gets to negotiate. Germany, as host of the UNFCCC Secretariat, UNDP and UN Women and as an aspiring UN Security Council member, carries a particular responsibility to ensure that its consulates do not become the first barrier to legitimate global governance - and to the trust of the partners it depends on. The solutions exist. The precedents exist. What seems to be missing is the political will to act.