MEDIA STATEMENT
World Leaders Speaking at the Biden Earth Day Summit Assert that Protecting Nature is a Win for Climate—and Biodiversity
WASHINGTON, DC (27 April 2021) — Last week, at Biden’s Earth Day Summit, world leaders made bold and sweeping pledges to slash greenhouse gas emissions—a critical step toward achieving the Paris climate agreement. At the same time, heads of state from France, the U.K., Germany, Gabon and Costa Rica, among others speaking at the Summit, made the powerful case that we can’t solve the climate crisis without tackling the biodiversity crisis.
Several leaders pointed to the global goal of protecting at least 30% of the planet by 2030 as a nature-based solution with enormous biodiversity and climate benefits, including climate change resilience, adaptation and mitigation. A UN study found that conserving 30% of land in strategic locations could safeguard 500 gigatons of carbon stored in vegetation and soils and reduce the extinction risk of nearly 9 out of 10 threatened terrestrial species.
Additional research has shown that the economic benefits of legitimate, nature-based solutions are far greater than risky, untested and more costly technologies. It has also shown that helping to secure land tenure rights for Indigenous communities is a key strategy to protect biodiversity and secure natural carbon sinks.
With the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 24, May 3 - June 13) event on the horizon, the following provides an overview of how the climate and biodiversity crises are interlinked.
Brian O’Donnell, Director, Campaign for Nature said:
“Listening between the lines at the Biden Earth Day Summit, it’s clear that the intertwined climate and biodiversity crises require concerted action. We need to treat the climate and ecological emergencies as one planetary emergency. They are two sides of the same coin. Global leaders can no longer address the climate and biodiversity crises separately to succeed on both.”
During the Earth Day Summit, summit leaders and spokespeople shared the following remarks:
Deb Haaland, United States Secretary of the Interior, said:
“Achieving net zero by 2050 will not be possible without nature. Funded projects will restore ecosystems such as coral reefs and coastal wetlands to protect communities from climate impacts, with engagement from community members, including in tribal, territorial and historically underserved communities. We’re getting started on the president’s commitment to conserve 30% of lands and waters in the United States by 2030.”
“We are accelerating public and private investments in natural climate solutions through USAID, which will conserve, manage and restore our forests and other lands to meet Paris Agreement targets and increase global investments in new programs in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, India and Indonesia.”
“It will take all of us working together and with nature to address the threats that climate change poses to our world and to build a more sustainable future for generations to come.”
Lee White, Minister of Water, Forests, the Seas, and Environment, Gabon, said:
“Our solution is to harness the power of nature.”
“We have made a commitment to sustainability on land and at sea. We are working with National Geographic Explorer Enric Sala to optimize marine carbon sequestration by improving technology in our fishing fleet, avoiding bottom trawling and creating marine protected areas. We are committed to creating 30% protected areas on land and sea by 2030.”
“We believe we do have a model for harnessing the power of nature for both development and climate stabilization.”
The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Canada, said:
“I don’t think we can say this often enough: nature is certainly under threat due to climate change, but nature is also our very best ally in the fight against this crisis.”
“We also have a parallel and complementary commitment of protecting 25% of our land and oceans by 2025 and 30% by 2030. Our climate goals depend on us addressing the whole carbon cycle and protecting nature. And nature is our ally.”
“We also recognize that this is a global challenge that requires global leadership and that will guide our cooperative investments in nature-based solutions in developing countries. We must ensure that our financial system has financial incentives to protect intact carbon and biodiversity rich natural areas.”
“Protecting carbon rich natural systems is certainly good for nature, for the climate and for people. It is the first, most effective and lowest cost nature-based solution.”
Andrea Meza, Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica, said:
“We need this integrated approach where nature-based and ocean-based solutions are key components to achieve the Paris goals. But we need to also recognize that nature is an asset.”
“We also launched the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. This is a science-based coalition co-chaired by Costa Rica, France and the U.K., as an ocean co-chair, that now has more than 60 regional countries and the coalition focuses its efforts on the protection of 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030. We need to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030. This is a concrete goal and it is also so good to hear that the U.S. is also committed at the national level with this goal.”“And we need action. It is not only about commitment. For this reason, we have included and are working with our Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and we also think that they should be part of the creation of these protected areas and of course in the management. We are seeing and we are hearing that they have this knowledge; they are the stewards of this nature. It is so important to also include them when we are talking about creation of new protected areas.”
Tuntiak Katan, General Coordinator, Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, said:
“We think that nature-based solutions also must go hand-in-hand with community-based solutions. I’m talking about communities, Indigenous communities, local communities and urban communities as well”
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and Indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of Indigenous Peoples with their forest and land, their contribution to mitigation, their contribution to reducing the effects of climate change. We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change. What does this mean? Adaptation and the resilience of Indigenous Peoples who historically have been saying that the way we act as people, as humankind, and our economic policies in the world are not the right ones.”
Olof Skoog, European Union Ambassador to the UN, said:
“Nature-based solutions need to be at the heart of our work for enhancing our resilience to future shocks for health and food security and for economic development.”
“We need to mobilize much more resources for nature in public and private; this would be most logical in the context of the recovery from a pandemic with such clear zoonotic origins.”
Volkan Bozkir, President of the UN General Assembly, said:
“We need ambitions for nature to be matched with nature-positive investments from domestic and international public and private sources. The total annual international public finance for nature is significantly less than the subsidies leading to its degradation. This is not sustainable and it doesn’t make economic sense.”
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said:
“A new global framework will require universal implementation and engagement of all stakeholders and will incentivize their explicit contribution to its global goals, including engagement of Indigenous Peoples in local communities, regional and city governments, the private sector, NGOs, women, youth and society at-large.”
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, said:
“It is clear for us; this pandemic gives us the same goals. When you protect nature, she will protect you back, and that’s what Indigenous Peoples have been doing for centuries. That’s how we build our Indigenous People’s traditional knowledge--by knowing where we can put our feet in order to protect ourselves.”
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The Campaign for Nature works with scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and a growing coalition of over 100 conservation organizations around the world who are calling on policymakers to commit to clear and ambitious targets to be agreed upon at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China in 2021 to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 and working with Indigenous leaders to ensure full respect for Indigenous rights.
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