Arianna Griffa
Senior Policy Manager - Global
From 21 October to 1 November delegates from governments, corporations, industry and NGOs will gather in Cali, Colombia to discuss the mobilisation of resources to support global action on biodiversity.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties, or Biodiversity COP, was launched at the Earth Summit in 1992 as a pillar of the Rio Conventions on biodiversity, climate and desertification. You’ll likely know its more prolific brother, UNFCCC or climate COP, with COP29 set for November in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The key objectives of biodiversity COP are:
- Conservation of biological diversity
- Sustainable use of nature’s components, and
- The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from commercial and other utilization of genetic resources.
These principles apply to all ecosystems, species and genetic resources.
Notably, the Biodiversity COP hosts a conference every two years rather than annually, which is where the discrepancy in numbering comes from.
Nature’s ‘Paris moment’
The last conference (COP15, held in Montreal in December 2022) founded the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, also known as the GBF or Biodiversity Plan. Agreement of the GBF stands alongside the Paris Agreement in terms of its significance in achieving international consensus on the urgency needed to protect and restore biodiversity.
The GBF agreed a set of four long-term goals for 2050 on biodiversity loss; ecosystem maintenance for sustainable development; use of genetic resources and traditional knowledge; and capacity building through financial support and scientific cooperation.
It also has 23 targets pinned to a 2030 deadline, the most famous of which is the 30x30 target. This a commitment to conserve 30% of land, water and seas by 2030 through the establishment of protected areas and conservation measures that recognise indigenous and traditional territories.
COP 16 will chart nations’ progress on these commitments since 2022, looking in particular at the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) that countries are expected to have published by the start of the conference. Key issues on the agenda include:
- Operationalisation of the monitoring framework for the 23 targets to support national reporting
- Mobilisation of finance necessary for implementation, particularly on Target 19 which pins a $20 billion per year target for public finance by 2025
- Finalise the mechanism to equitably share digital sequence information on genetic resources
IIGCC, nature and COP16
For investors, biodiversity COP is a crucial platform for coordinated public and private action on nature and biodiversity. Our work on nature and climate increasingly overlaps across these two core issues, supporting the adage that ‘there’s no net zero without nature.’
The goals and targets outlined by the GBF are the building blocks for global policy on biodiversity and have clear implications for the private sector, our work, and our investor members.