JOHANNESBURG, Aug 27 (IPS) – ‘Peace with nature’ is the theme of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), taking place in Cali, Colombia, from 21 October to 1 November 2024.
But what does ‘Peace with Nature’ mean?
Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad
For COP16 President and Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Susana Muhamad, the theme Peace with Nature means realizing that Climate change And restoration of nature are both sides of the same coin.
“That is the main motivation why Colombia decided to organize this conference. We see that humanity has to make a double movement,” Muhamad said at a press conference on August 22, 2024.
Her vision clearly makes biodiversity as politically relevant as the climate change agenda.
While it is crucial to decarbonise and achieve a fair energy transition, it is equally important to ‘restore nature’ so that we can ultimately ‘stabilise the climate’.
She mentions three political successes: strong involvement of all sectors, positioning biodiversity as a parallel movement to decarbonization and the approval of the Digital Sequencing Information Fund.
“At the same time that we don’t decarbonize, the climate will continue to change and nature won’t have time to adapt,” Muhamad said. “And if nature collapses, communities and people will collapse and society will collapse.”
The role of COP16 as the first of three COPs (organised by the UNCBD, UNFCCC and UNCCD respectively) this year is to “raise political and economic awareness for biodiversity and thus bring humanity back to safe limits during the 21st century”.st century.”
CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker
For Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of CBD, the theme of the Colombian presidency, Peace with Nature, is a call to action.
She describes the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGVF) as the blueprint for making peace with nature, with four goals: protecting and restoring nature, sharing benefits, investing in nature and partnering with nature.
Schomaker argues that COP16 is essential for resolving the outstanding issues from COP 15.
“This is about access to and sharing of benefits of digital sequence information of genetic resources. That is a very technical topic, but it is a very, very important topic, also in terms of mobilization of resources, but also in terms of understanding how we interact with nature, that when we take from nature, we benefit from nature, we give back to nature.”
Schomaker also referred to the need to finance biodiversity with international support, which would complement Canada’s $200 million donation. The fund currently stands at $300 million.
Finally, COP16 will include initiatives that bring indigenous peoples and local communities to the table and make their voices heard, so that the traditional knowledge they bring can deepen the debate.
Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault
In handing over the baton to the COP16 presidency, Guilbeault reflected on COP15, which has been dubbed the “Paris moment” for biodiversity. He referred to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to “keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Despite the achievements and hard work, biodiversity issues remain a challenge and there is still no ‘peace with nature’.
“Species are still going extinct. We are still using natural resources in an unsustainable way. And we still haven’t collectively realized that, in the fight against climate change, our greatest ally is nature.”
What are the challenges?
Finances
Muhamad acknowledged that financing is crucial for “sustainable” and secure resources for the future. She called on parties to come forward and make firm commitments to finance biodiversity, although they have until 2025 to do so under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The COP16 President also hoped that this forum would be a “pioneer” for new financing mechanisms that go beyond the reliance on countries funding the framework and that would “open up new possibilities for financing mechanisms that are more sustainable and that are appropriate in scale to the challenge we face.”
Company
Muhamad also referred to the proactive role of the business community in their responsibilities to maintain a safe environment and its contribution to biodiversity.
The framework requires governments to remove subsidies over time from sectors of the economy that could impact biodiversity. This could lead to backlash, so human rights and fairness are key; however, there are also many opportunities.
“We hope that at COP16 we can draw a lot of inspiration from the business models that are already integrated and take nature as design into account, and that are at the forefront of new perspectives.”
It is also crucial that this becomes a partnership between government and business to move forward. There will be opportunities at COP16, in both the green and blue zones, to continue the conversation.
Digital sequence
Mohammed expects that the approval of a digital sequencing fund and the mechanism for its implementation will be important outcomes of the negotiations.
Shoemaker added that it had already been “decided that there will be a new global mechanism for sharing the benefits of digital sequence information on genetic resources, and that global mechanism will include a fund.” Discussions are still ongoing about the form the fund will take.
“Will it be a new fund, a completely new fund, which is one of the options on the table, or will it be one of the existing funds that we have?”
David KuiperThe CBD Deputy Executive Secretary agreed that the discussion should also include whether existing funds, such as the Global Biodiversity Fund, managed by the Global Environment Facility, should be used or whether a new fund should be established.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
