Campaign For Nature

October 13, 2021
At the much-anticipated virtual opening of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Chinese President Xi, heads of state and ministers from around the world came together to stress the critical importance of conservation and the protection of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who safeguard nature.  

The meeting, which will be followed by meetings in Geneva and Kunming, China next year, underlined growing ambition to change our relationship with nature. It indicated an urgency to agree upon a transformative global vision and commit the financial commitments necessary to champion the critical infrastructure, which are lagging behind. 

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Thomson Reuters Foundation News

October 13, 2021
China's launch of a biodiversity fund is a "good start" but falls short of what is needed to help developing countries meet the goals in a global nature pact, environmentalists warned, urging all rich nations to step up ambition and funding.

About 195 countries are set to finalise a new accord to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at a two-part U.N. summit that began this week and is due to be finish in May next year in the Chinese city of Kunming.

Addressing the COP15 biodiversity virtual summit on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the highly anticipated launch of a 1.5 billion yuan ($232.47 million) fund to support biodiversity protection in developing countries.

But China's funding pledge was a "drop in the bucket" and disappointing "for such a major world power", said Charles Barber, a senior biodiversity advisor at the World Resources Institute, a U.S.-based think-tank.

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The Guardian

October 11, 2021
All eyes are on Cop26 in Glasgow since the climate crisis aroused worldwide attention and compelled more than 120 countries to join the unprecedented global Race to Zero carbon-emissions campaign. But the UN biodiversity conference in Kunming, or Cop15, should not be overshadowed, as biodiversity loss is an equally grave threat to humanity.

Cop15, delayed repeatedly by the Covid-19 pandemic, will take place in two parts, online from 11 October, with more detailed discussions left for April’s meeting in Kunming, China. The conference will convene governments from around the world to agree new goals for nature for the next decade, as global biodiversity losses pose a threat to human wellbeing, affecting food, health and security, and increasing the likelihood of pandemics.

Humanity has achieved unprecedented development and prosperity over the past 50 years, with the world population more than doubling and global GDP growing from barely $3tn in 1970 to nearly $85tn in 2020. But in this time nature has suffered enormous losses, with the global populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish declining by two-thirds on average, according to last year’s Living Planet report.

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Reuters

October 8, 2021
Global leaders will gather virtually next week to discuss protecting nature across the planet and experts say there's no time to lose. Animal and plant species are going extinct at a rate not seen in 10 million years.

The losses are accelerating, scientists say, thanks largely to climate change, deforestation, pollution, overfishing and urban development. To limit the loss, the United Nations has urged countries to commit to conserving 30% of their land – almost double the area now under some form of protection.

About 70 countries have committed to the target, which would include about a third of the world's land animals and plants, according to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.

China begins hosting the U.N. Conference on Biodiversity, known as COP15, in the city of Kunming on Monday, with most discussions taking place online because of COVID restrictions. A second round will be held next year.

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Xinhuanet

October 8, 2021
The upcoming United Nations (UN) biodiversity conference to be held in the Chinese city of Kunming will be essential in setting the blueprint for fixing the world's biodiversity crisis in the next "decisive decade," a U.S. expert has said.

James Roth, senior vice president for global policy and government affairs at Conservation International (CI), a non-profit international organization based in the United States with a mission to promote global biodiversity and the well-being of humanity, said this in an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday.

The first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP15, is set to kick off on Monday both online and in person. The meeting will review the "post-2020 global biodiversity framework" to draw a blueprint for biodiversity conservation in the future.

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The Guardian

October 5, 2021
Governments hoping for a global agreement to halt biodiversity loss must put more effort into access to Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries, the UN’s biodiversity chief has warned.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the Kunming Cop15 summit, at which governments will try to forge a “Paris agreement for nature”, was vital for halting the global crisis of species loss.

Arrangements are being made to enable all delegates to be vaccinated in good time for the in-person part of the conference in April next year. But by that stage there must also be a clear plan for making vaccines available to the populations of developing countries, said Mrema.

“If we are to continue with negotiations, ensuring that no one is left behind, it means parties can’t meet in person if the whole world is not vaccinated,” she told the Guardian. “In the developing world, vaccines are still not easily available to the rest of the population, and that’s a challenge and a worry. We need to vaccinate more broadly, not just for delegates. Otherwise the principle of leaving no one behind will be the opposite – we will have left many behind.”

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Global Citizen

August 31, 2021
By now you've probably heard of COP26 — the shorthand name for the next major UN climate summit, rescheduled for November in Glasgow after being delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic.

But another big "Convention of the Parties" (COP) starts a month earlier — one that is far less talked about but also critically important. That is COP15: the two-part UN biodiversity summit that will kick off in October online and finish next May in the southern Chinese city of Kunming.

Efforts to protect the natural world have yet to achieve the same high profile as those to limit climate change, despite advocacy by British naturalist David Attenborough and many others.

Losses of crucial ecosystems like rainforests and wetlands, as well as animal species, have accelerated even as governments, businesses, financiers, and conservation groups seek effective ways to protect and restore more of the Earth's land and seas.

So what is COP15, and what does it hope to achieve?

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Thomson Reuters

August 27, 2021
China and African nations are pushing for the establishment of a multi-billion-dollar "global biodiversity fund" to help developing countries meet goals agreed in a new pact being negotiated to protect nature, U.N. officials and observers said.

About 195 countries are expected to finalise a new accord to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at a two-part U.N. summit due to culminate in May next year in the southern Chinese city of Kunming.

The difficulty of meeting face to face because of the COVID-19 pandemic meant the summit was postponed three times and then split into two, with the first virtual session scheduled for October and preparatory discussions now underway.

Basile van Havre, co-chair of the talks under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, said China and a number of mainly African countries are proposing a new biodiversity fund to help finance the goals of the pact, once agreed.

"The idea of increasing funding is a good one and we all welcome this," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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The Guardian

August 18, 2021
A key United Nations biodiversity summit has been delayed for a third time due to the pandemic, the Chinese environment ministry has announced, as environmentalists pledged the delay would “not mean taking our foot off the pedal”.

In a statement, the Chinese ministry of ecology and environment confirmed that Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, would be delayed, and that negotiations for this decade’s targets will be split into two phases so that governments can meet face-to-face in Kunming, China, in the first half of 2022.

The talks had been scheduled for October this year after two previous delays due to the coronavirus pandemic. The first phase of the meeting, which will be largely procedural, will be held in the Chinese city between 11 and 15 October, with most people attending virtually. Countries will then negotiate the targets for the global biodiversity framework that governments will aim to meet by the end of the decade in Kunming from 25 April to 8 May 2022.

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Campaign For Nature

August 18, 2021
Following the first draft of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), officials announced today new dates for the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15). The biodiversity summit, where 196 countries will agree on an action plan for ending the nature crisis, is now scheduled to take place in two parts: virtually in October 2021 from the 11 to the 15 and in person April 25 through May 8, 2022 in Kunming, China. The Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI), and the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) will hold face-to-face meetings in January 2022 in Switzerland. 

The aim of the delay is to allow for equitable and safe face-to-face negotiations before and at COP15 which, due to the coronavirus pandemic, cannot happen before the initial date set for October 2021.  

Despite the meeting’s delay, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, a coalition of 65 countries led by Costa Rica, France and the United Kingdom, are driving forward with ambitious plans to protect and conserve nature and donor nations are beginning to commit to increase finance for nature.

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ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability

August 6, 2021
Over the past two decades, ICLEI, through its Cities Biodiversity Center (CBC), has worked closely with the United Nations Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and a range of partners to elevate the voice of local and subnational governments and ensure that strong action is taken to create vibrant cities and regions, where people and biodiversity can thrive.

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MirageNews

August 5, 2021
Improving ecosystem integrity is essential to ensuring human and planetary wellbeing. Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are working to adopt a consistent and accurate method to define and measure ecosystem integrity. In the new paper recently published in Conservation Letters, “Towards monitoring forest ecosystem integrity within the Post-2020 biodiversity framework“, scientists and biodiversity experts from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and eight other leading institutions share a pathway to fill this critical gap.

While ecological integrity often goes undefined, this new joint paper establishes a quantifiable definition for it, delineating ecological integrity as a measure of the structure, function and composition of an ecosystem compared to pre-industrial levels. Then, building from metrics, such as the Global Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network’s (GEO BON) Essential Biodiversity Variables, the authors recommend eight key indicators to evaluate ecological integrity, indexing vital markers such as deforestation, species habitat, biodiversity loss or ecosystem resilience. The paper demonstrates how advances in earth observations can be harnessed to track these metrics, providing a clearer picture of the earth’s valuable ecosystems and a way to measure progress towards our biodiversity goals.

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China Dialogue

July 21, 2021
If we needed more proof of our biodiversity crisis, a herd of wild elephants marching through China has been doing the job in the most heart-warming way possible. They’ve been walking north from Xishuangbanna for months, and their antics – raising babies, getting drunk, barging down doors and turning on taps to drink – have captivated the public. But so have the more serious reasons for their unusual migration, which local experts say is probably caused by the destruction of primary forests outside protected areas, forcing elephants to find new places to roam.

As the Asian elephants reached the city of Kunming, its local government deployed an array of tactics to keep the herd out, blocking roads and laying trails of pineapples and sweetcorn to divert them.

Kunming will be clearing away the pineapple trails to welcome world leaders as China hosts the COP15 UN biodiversity conference. A herd of wild elephants walking through Yunnan is a powerful symbol of the urgency that’s forcing our nature crisis onto the agenda of global leaders.

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ENDS Report

July 13, 2021
The forthcoming UN biodiversity pact could aim to remove at least 10 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year by 2030, alongside slashing pesticide consumption and eliminating discharges of plastic waste, according to a first draft.

The secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which released the text yesterday following two years’ work, says that its 21 targets and ten key ‘milestones’ would put the world on course to ‘living in harmony with nature’ by 2050. The treaty is set to be finalised by the 196 parties to the convention during talks in the Chinese city of Kunming this October, preceded by online discussions and refinement by expert groups this summer.

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Climate Home News

July 13, 2021
The UN biodiversity body has released the first draft of a global agreement to halt nature and wildlife loss in the next nine years.

The document will form the basis of negotiations ahead of a biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, where governments are due to agree on a post-2020 framework to protect life on Earth.

“This is meant to be both a summary of the current state of the discussion but also a way to elicit more discussion and negotiation,” Basil van Havre, co-chair of the open working group in charge of overseeing the negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity wrote on Twitter.

But while the draft text sets out aspirations and objectives for 2030 and beyond, it fails to provide a concrete action plan to meet them, campaigners say.

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