COP16 – the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (see why everyone shortens it?) is taking place in Cali, Columbia through to Friday 1st November 2024. It is the first Biodiversity COP since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December 2022 and will, among other things, require governments to review the state of implementation of that agreement.
Governments from across the globe will be expected to show how they have made progress in aligning their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) with the Framework. With the aim of halting biodiversity loss by 2030, there are only 5 years left and so, so much still to do.
Global biodiversity loss is an existential crisis that we are failing to address, others have written very eloquently about the perils associated with the loss of nature and damage to natural systems and the support they give to societies everywhere, and I do not propose to subject you to my take on ecosystem services, natural capital or biodiversity in general.
I suspect I would principally be preaching to the converted anyway, but for those who are not already committed to working to halt and reverse this loss, please, please do a little digging and remind yourselves that without a healthy global ecosystem, we will suffer a catastrophic failure in food production and availability of other resources.
It is apparent that when accounts start to be examined there will be a truly horrifying lack of progress. Only 61 of the signatories to the Framework have submitted national targets and only 15 have published their NBSAP. There are many barriers to success in fulfilling the commitment to publishing these plans, including funding, lack of data and political instability, but as the WWF says, ‘a worrying ambition gap persists between what countries committed to in Montreal, and the action taken so far to recover nature’.
And remember, we are only talking about the first steps so far here, the understanding of the state of the natural systems in the country, the decisions on how to address the issues and a plan for action. We must turn these plans into measurable, successful progress now.
There are some who look at meetings, like the COP, and see nothing but talk, and there is a danger that a perception of ‘it’s just words’ is partly true. However, without meetings like this, how will we understand each other’s relationship with nature, the barriers facing different cultures and societies in addressing the crisis, and how we, as a global community, can act together to redress the damage? There remains a fundamental imbalance in the global economy which places an inequitable strain on countries with some of the greatest biodiversity resources, but with the lowest financial means to tackle the crisis which is of all our making.
Perhaps we will see some commitment from the richer countries to greater assistance for other nations to quantify and address their local issues, perhaps we will see some movement to a more regenerative economic model which places less value on growth and more on sustainability. What we will see for definite is a full and frank discussion in which all nations have an equal voice and hold each other to account for action or lack thereof.
