Governments risk another decade of failure on wildlife loss if they do not fully implement a landmark agreement, the UN’s acting biodiversity chief has warned, 12 months after the accord was struck.
As anticipation begins for the next summit – confirmed last week to be hosted by Colombia – the legacy and implementation of the last, historic agreement remains uncertain.
Colombia’s Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, says that Cop16 will be “a wonderful event for one of the most biodiverse countries in the world”, adding: “This event sends a message from Latin America to the world about the importance of climate action and the protection of life.”
Look back at this time last year in Montreal where governments in the early hours of December 19 a once-in-a-decade dealit is worth remembering that the world has never hit a UN target to halt the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems.
However, there have been significant efforts to make sure the 2020s are different, amid increasingly alarming warnings about the health of the planet and the risk of further damage to human society. Cop15’s 23 targets included protecting 30% of the planet for nature, reforming billions in harmful subsidies and restoring large areas of degraded ecosystems.
By the Cop28 climate negotiations in Dubai, the biodiversity agreement – known as the Kunming-Montreal Framework – received a boost after it was referred to in the final text. This means that countries will have to consider the biodiversity agreement as they develop their next round of nationally determined contributions ahead of Cop30 in Brazil in 2025, raising hopes that biodiversity and climate will be treated as interconnected issues. The importance of nature, stopping deforestation by 2030 and the role of indigenous communities were also recognized in Dubai in the text.
Despite the positive momentum, says David Cooper, the UN’s acting biodiversity chief, to focus on one high-profile target to protect 30% of the earth for nature without action against agriculture, harmful subsidies and pollution could be another decade of failure.
“If we focus on the target of protecting 30% of the Earth alone without looking at the other elements of the framework, we risk repeating the experience and to a large extent the failures of last decade’s targets ,” says Cooper. “It’s really important that we look at all the drivers of biodiversity loss and their underlying causes that address other targets, such as things like subsidies, financial investments and consumption patterns.”
Two million species are at risk of extinction, according to researchers, threatened by habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, the climate crisis and direct exploitation. With climate expected to become the primary threat to life on Earth as the planet continues to warm, Cooper says it is essential to limit global warming to 1.5C.
“Stopping and reversing biodiversity loss simply cannot be done if we do not act against climate change,” he says. “As we approach 1.5C, the ability of ecosystems to help mitigate and adapt to climate change is dependent on the integrity of those ecosystems. It’s not just about carbon. Natural carbon storage in soils, plants, peatlands and forests is very dependent on functioning ecosystems.”
In terms of preventing the destruction of nature on the planet, there was some positive news this year. Deforestation in the Brazilian and Colombian The Amazon has slowed, while Malaysia and Indonesia have maintained low rates of forest loss, raising the prospect that 2023 will mark the first global drop in activity after years of clearing.
Governments also created and monetized a new international fund for nature, which was a sticking point in Montreal. After much argument at Cop15another financial mechanism for nature financing is also being developed to share the benefits of drug discoveries, vaccines and food products based on biodiversity.
Johan Rockström, a leading climate scientist and the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says he is hopeful about this decade’s agreement.
“I’m quite optimistic. I think it’s starting to sink in that nature isn’t about environmental protection, it’s about safety and stability. If you want modern societies, you want to preserve nature,” he says. “The quantification of 1.5C equivalent for nature that we got at Cop15 is really valuable. Connecting with the climate agenda is phenomenal.”
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Before the 2024 event, governments will need to set out their plans for meeting this decade’s nature targets. In Dubai, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, told the Guardian that biodiversity will be the basis of the country’s economy after it pledged to phase out coal, oil and gas, also backing a fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty at Cop28.
At the climate summit, China became the latest country to sign up to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature, pledging to protect 30% of its land and sea. With 116 countries now signed up, the director of the initiative, Rita El Zaghloul, says the emphasis was on making sure areas were under high-quality protection.
“We want countries to submit their requests on where they need support and where the gaps are in order for us to be able to assist them. It is not just about the coverage of the protected area – it is about the quality of the protection,” she says.
The IUCN president, Razan Al Mubarak, a Cop28 climate champion, was also optimistic that this decade would be different for nature.
“I have to be optimistic. I think we have a clear target with 30 by 30. It’s that nexus that will bring the necessary attention and finance, and empower [Indigenous communities] which already protects 80% of our biodiversity to continue to do so," she says.
“Brazil has been able to prove that you can turn the tide, not once but twice under Lula's presidency. Indonesia does it. With the right targets, with the right attention, with the political will and the finances, we have shown that it is possible."
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