Amid the flurry of holiday-related activities, COP15 — formally known as the United Nations Biodiversity Conference — concluded last Monday, Dec. 19, 2022, in Montreal, Canada. What came out of the two-week meet was dubbed as a “landmark biodiversity agreement” — the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
The importance of this agreement couldn’t be more stressed even though observers have noted the lack of public attention. The COP15, chaired by China and hosted by Canada, had gathered 188 governments who have agreed in principle on some steps to help avert the damage to biodiversity and aid in healing of the planet.
According to a statement from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the GBP aims to “address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems, and protect indigenous rights.” The plan also includes “concrete measures” to “halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 percent of the planet and 30 percent of degraded ecosystems under protection by year 2030.” This was dubbed by the media as the “30 by 30 goal.”
“The stakes could not be higher: the planet is experiencing a dangerous decline in nature as a result of human activity. It is experiencing its largest loss of life since the dinosaurs. One million plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades,” said the UN statement.
To be clear and actionable, the GBF consists of four overarching global goals to protect nature, including: halting human-induced extinction of threatened species and reducing the rate of extinction of all species tenfold by 2050; sustainable use and management of biodiversity to ensure that nature’s contributions to people are valued, maintained, and enhanced; fair sharing of the benefits from the utilization of genetic resources, and digital sequence information on genetic resources; and that adequate means of implementing the GBF be accessible to all parties, particularly least developed countries, and small island developing states.
“Success will be measured by our rapid and consistent progress in implementing what we have agreed to. The entire UN system is geared to support its implementation so we can truly make peace with nature,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen.
To ensure accountability and fulfillment of goals, the GBF has 23 “targets” to achieve by 2030. Among the 23 targets that will matter to our country include “restoration of 30 percent of terrestrial and marine ecosystems;” “reduce to near zero the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance;” “halving global food waste;” among others.
What is important for us to also know is that during COP15, discussions were made on how much money developed countries will send to developing countries to address biodiversity loss. “It was requested that a Global Environment Facility set up a special trust fund (GBP Fund) to support the implementation of the GBP, in order to ensure an adequate, predictable, and timely flow of funds.” The approved text showed that rich countries will provide “at least US$20 billion per year by 2025… and at least US$30 billion per year by 2030,” which is approximately double, and then triple the current international aid for biodiversity.
This GBF agreement may not be noticed by most Filipinos, but there is one thing that everyone of us should know — the Philippines is one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots, and we are, sadly, putting our biodiversity at so much risk. The world is starting to do something about this but it would not be complete without our cooperation, empathy, and understanding.