COP 16 on Biodiversity: Who Will Stop the Rain?

As has been part of my routine in the past few weeks, I have been reading all I can on the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and, inadvertently, I realized that the song “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” by Creedence Clearwater Revival was playing in the background. This made me think for a moment about the huge importance this upcoming event has for the future of all of us and that every event of such magnitude and importance fills us with the hope that all the parties involved in the decision-making processes will make transformational calls to lead us to the deeply desired sustainable future.

Before we get into the agenda of the COP16, we need to start from the basics. The CBD was born in Rio, Brazil, in 1992 after years of conversations during the 1980s and the beginning of the ‘90s about the need to have a legal framework to address losses in global biological diversity. Later in 1993, once it received the necessary support from numerous countries, the CBD became effective and legally binding.

Since 1994, there have been 15 ordinary meetings and two extraordinary meetings of the COP on the CBD. From the first one in 1994 in Nassau, Bahamas, where the procedural rules for the COP as well as other important operational aspects were discussed, to the first extraordinary meeting of the COP in 2000, in which the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was adopted, to the COP10 in 2010, where the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing alongside genetic resources was approved, and finally, to the 15th meeting of the COP, split in two parts, the first in Kunming, China, in 2021 and the second in Montreal, Canada in 2022 (later resumed in 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya), where the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted.

Now in 2024, the 16th edition of the COP to the CBD is back in Colombia, in the city of Cali. However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this event will also serve as the 11th meeting of the COP to the Cartagena Protocol and as the 15th meeting of the COP to the Nagoya Protocol. As a notable and sensitive note, we cannot overlook the fact that due to the tragic earthquakes suffered by the country in 2023, Turkey had to withdraw its offer to host the COP16 this year, with the subsequent kind offer of the government of Colombia to open up the doors of its country again to host the negotiations.

Considering the importance of what will be discussed on the agenda of the COP16, Colombia seems like the optimal place to make it happen. As is broadly known, Colombia is among the most biologically diverse countries globally, with over 300 types of ecosystems and close to 15% of the living species of the country being endemic. Additionally, Colombia occupies first places on bird species, orchid species, plants, amphibians, freshwater fish, palms, reptiles, and mammals.

With Cali as the venue, the conversations on the details of the Kunming-Montreal GBF will continue. As mentioned before, the GBF was a key milestone in the history of the Convention on Biological Diversity, not only because of the long four-year consultation and negotiation process that in the end led to a consensus of all parties of the Convention, but more importantly, due to its longer term vision toward 2050 and the mission it set for the year 2030, all of which is presented in the form of four goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030. 

The four big goals of the GBF are the following:

1. Protect ecosystems and species

2. Use and manage biodiversity in a sustainable manner

3. Share benefits of the utilization of genetic resources fairly and equitably and protect traditional knowledge

4. Implement actions and mobilize resources

Although all the 23 targets of the GBF can be deemed equally important, some worth highlighting as an example of their link to the objectives of the Framework are the restoration of at least 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030 to improve biodiversity and ecosystem services (target 2), the conservation of at least 30% of areas important for their biodiversity and ecosystem functions by 2030 (target 3), the full integration of biodiversity values into policy and regulation across all sectors and governmental levels (target 14), and the promotion of technical and scientific cooperation as well as enhancing technology transfer (target 20).

There are also two specific targets focused on tackling the existing financial gap toward biodiversity projects. First, target 18 addresses the urgent need to reorient financial incentives from activities that are harmful to biodiversity to others that produce a positive impact. Secondly, target 19 focuses on the necessity to mobilize at least US$200 billion per year by 2030.

To achieve the high ambitions of the GBF, all actors need to contribute, and there is a particularly important target centered on the private sector. Target 15 encourages businesses, especially global corporations and financial institutions, to assess and report their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity, both in their own operations and in the rest of their value chains, including their investment portfolios. Fortunately, businesses now have many more tools to make this possible, including the recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the stepwise procedure of the Science-Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) to design and communicate targets to address nature loss and to restore biodiversity, including its AR3T framework, and the recently published topical GRI Standard on biodiversity. Moreover, there are other reporting regulations and standards in the works, which are also in line with target 15, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the eventual incorporation of nature-related issues into the reporting standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Thinking about the busy agenda that will be discussed at the COP16, there are numerous items to consider. The following are key:

• Decisions on mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and reviewing the implementation of the Framework

• Progress of the parties in the alignment of targets to the GBF and the updating of their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)

• Options for a global instrument on biodiversity finance to lead the mobilization of resources

• Guidelines and templates for including commitments from non-state actors

• Mechanism for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources

• Operationalization of the global coordination entity of the technical and scientific cooperation mechanism

• Strategy on knowledge management to support the implementation of the GBF

For the review of the level of progress of the parties in the alignment of their targets to the GBF or the updating of their NBSAPs, the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) is holding its fifth meeting before the beginning of the COP16 and the results of that session will serve as input for the adoption of additional decisions. As per the note prepared by the SBI for the discussions of their fifth meeting, which considered the information provided by the parties until the end of August, around one-third of the parties of the CBD had submitted national targets aligned with the GBF, but it is expected that many more will do so before the start of the COP16 in Cali.

As expressed in the latest report of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and in light of different statistics such as the reduction of 73% in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over the period of 1970 to 2020, what humanity does in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth, and the continuation of incremental changes won’t be sufficient in moments like this when radical steps are necessary.

The music is still playing in the background but now it’s “Green River,” also from Creedence, joining me in my final readings in preparation for what I hope are two very intense and productive weeks in Cali. Let’s do our part.