Ahead of the annual climate change conference scheduled for this year in Baku, Azerbaijan, starting November 11, countries are currently gathering in the Colombian city of Cali for the biennial United Nations Biodiversity Conference.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was born out of the same 1992 Rio Earth Summit that led to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The CBD aims to protect global biodiversity, restore natural ecosystems and ensure that the benefits from the world's biological resources are equitably shared.
This year's meeting, the 16th CBD Conference of the Parties (COP16), will be the first since the landmark agreement on biodiversity was reached two years ago. The agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, signed at COP15 in Montreal in 2022, sets out four goals and 23 targets to be collectively achieved by 2030.
These include so-called 30 x 30 targets. This is a commitment to bring under conservation, by 2030, at least 30% of the world's land and oceans, particularly areas rich in biodiversity, and to begin restoration work on at least 30% of degraded land and lands. Improve marine ecosystems by 2030.
Discussions under the CBD have been extremely low-profile compared to previous climate change negotiations, but are gradually gaining attention due to growing awareness of the seriousness of the problem and its consequences if left unchecked. There is.
The climate crisis and threats to biodiversity are closely linked, both caused by indiscriminate extraction of natural resources, overconsumption and unsustainable human activities. The two crises also influence each other. Climate change is accelerating biodiversity loss, while land and ocean changes are contributing to global warming.
Although the climate change and biodiversity debates have been on separate trajectories for the past three decades, their interconnectedness is becoming increasingly clear. As a result, the goals and outcomes of these two negotiations have increasingly converged.
30×30 momentum
One of the main objectives of COP16 is to accelerate progress on the most immediate 30 x 30 goals. Under the Kunming-Montreal Framework, countries are to develop and submit action plans to halt and reverse biodiversity loss within their jurisdictions.
These National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are similar to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries are required to submit under the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, with time-bound targets and It refers to the actions being taken.
So far, only 32 of the total 196 CBD Parties have submitted their NBSAPs. More companies may do so during COP16.
The High Seas Convention, also known as the Agreement on Biological Diversity Across Jurisdictions (BBNJ), was finalized last year as a separate international agreement to maintain the ecological health of the oceans, and is a 30×30 This was a major step forward in achieving this goal.
One of the objectives of the High Seas Treaty is to demarcate protected areas in areas rich in marine biodiversity where human activities can be regulated and restricted, similar to national parks and wildlife reserves on land.
shared genetic resources
Another goal of the High Seas Treaty is to ensure that the benefits from the exploitation of genetic resources in the oceans outside the borders of countries are shared equitably by all. The ocean is home to a wide variety of life forms, from tiny microorganisms to giant fish, some of which are useful for medical, commercial, and scientific reasons.
This also fits into the discussions at COP16, where sharing of benefits from common genetic resources is expected to figure prominently. At COP10 in 2010, countries finalized an access and benefit-sharing mechanism, also known as the Nagoya Protocol. This mechanism sets out the general principles and rules for commercial exploitation of each country's rights and claims to its biological resources.
At COP16, countries are negotiating the sharing of benefits from the use of genetic information in plants and organisms made possible by advances in modern science. Digitally stored genetic sequences are commercially lucrative and are used by companies to manufacture a variety of items, including high-yield crops, beauty products, and pharmaceuticals.
COP16 will discuss how these digital arrays will be used, who can use them, and a fair and equitable way to distribute the benefits, especially for indigenous peoples who may have been the original owners of biological resources. It is hoped that some decisions will be made on what the mechanism will be. .
Financial questions
As with climate change negotiations, money is important in the CBD debate. One of the 23 goals of the Kunming-Montreal Framework is to mobilize at least $200 billion per year from all sources to spend on biodiversity conservation by 2030. Of this, developed countries must provide at least $20 billion annually to developing countries to support biodiversity-related activities.
This funding should increase to at least $30 billion annually by 2030. The ways and means of mobilizing these funds will be one of the main topics of discussion at COP16.
Countries are also to ensure that perverse incentives and subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity are phased out, eliminated or recycled. These can provide incentives to allow overfishing, encourage deforestation, and subsidize the use of fossil fuels. Under the Kunming-Montreal Framework, these measures would be expanded to at least $500 billion by 2030.
At COP16, countries will also discuss the possibility of establishing a biodiversity fund, new financing mechanisms and biodiversity credits based on carbon credits.
