Biodiversity and Climate Change: COP16 and the Global Efforts ...

Biodiversity and Climate Change: COP16 and the Global Efforts to Address the Crisis

Oct. 23, 2024

What’s in Today’s Article?

Introduction:

As the world grapples with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, global conferences like the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16), scheduled in Cali, Colombia, are gaining significance.
Following the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was established at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, COP16 focuses on protecting biodiversity, restoring ecosystems, and ensuring fair distribution of the benefits derived from the world's biological resources.
This meeting comes after a landmark agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022), which set ambitious targets for conserving biodiversity by 2030.
These conferences are increasingly gaining attention as the impact of environmental degradation becomes more apparent globally.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework:

The Kunming-Montreal Framework, finalized at COP15 in 2022, established four major goals and 23 specific targets to be achieved by 2030. One of the most prominent of these is the 30 x 30 target, which aims to:
- Conserve 30% of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030, particularly focusing on biodiversity-rich areas.
- Restore 30% of degraded land or marine ecosystems by 2030.
This framework is an essential step in reversing biodiversity loss and restoring natural ecosystems.
However, progress has been slow, and one of the main objectives of COP16 is to accelerate efforts to meet these targets.
Countries are required to submit their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which are equivalent to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement.
Despite the ambitious framework, only 32 countries have submitted their NBSAPs, and more are expected to do so during COP16.

Interconnection Between Climate Change and Biodiversity:

The crises of climate change and biodiversity loss are deeply intertwined:
- Climate change accelerates biodiversity loss, with rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns destroying ecosystems.
- In return, ecosystem changes—such as deforestation and ocean warming—contribute to global warming, further exacerbating climate issues.
Although these two crises have been addressed on separate tracks for decades, there is now a growing recognition of their interdependence.
As a result, biodiversity and climate discussions are starting to converge, with COP16 focusing on biodiversity while parallel efforts continue in climate change negotiations.

High Seas Treaty and Ocean Conservation:

Another significant development in the fight against biodiversity loss is the finalization of the High Seas Treaty, also known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions (BBNJ)
This treaty aims to protect biodiversity in oceans outside of national boundaries.
The treaty calls for the creation of protected areas in biodiversity-rich parts of the oceans where human activities can be regulated, similar to national parks on land.
Additionally, the treaty ensures equitable sharing of benefits from the exploitation of genetic resources in the oceans.
These genetic resources, ranging from microbes to large marine species, hold immense commercial potential, especially in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and agriculture.
The High Seas Treaty ensures that these benefits are shared among all nations, not just a few.

Access and Benefit Sharing: The Nagoya Protocol

The Nagoya Protocol, finalized at COP10 in 2010, laid down rules for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS).
This mechanism ensures that the benefits from the commercial use of biological resources are fairly distributed, especially to the countries and communities that own or manage these resources.
At COP16, countries are expected to discuss the sharing of benefits from the digital genetic information of plants and organisms.
Advances in science now allow genetic sequences to be stored and shared digitally, and these sequences are highly valuable for the creation of high-yield crops, medicines, and beauty products.
The debate centres around how these digital sequences can be used and who gets to share in the profits, particularly indigenous populations who might have originally owned these resources.

Financial Mechanisms for Biodiversity Conservation:

Like in climate change discussions, finance plays a critical role in biodiversity negotiations.
One of the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Framework is to mobilize $200 billion per year by 2030 from all sources for biodiversity conservation. This includes:
- $20 billion annually from developed countries to developing nations for their biodiversity efforts.
- An increase in this amount to $30 billion per year by 2030.
At COP16, the focus will also be on how countries can eliminate or repurpose harmful subsidies that negatively affect biodiversity, such as subsidies for fossil fuels, deforestation, and overfishing.
The goal is to redirect these subsidies to sustainable activities and scale up efforts to $500 billion by 2030.

Conclusion:

As the world moves towards addressing the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, conferences like COP16 play a pivotal role in driving international cooperation and action.
The 30 x 30 target, the High Seas Treaty, and the push for financial mobilization are crucial elements in the global fight to preserve biodiversity.
As biodiversity loss accelerates, there is a growing understanding that both developed and developing countries must work together to achieve these ambitious goals.
COP16 will be a critical platform for countries to make meaningful progress towards protecting our planet's biodiversity.

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