United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP-15).

NEWS HIGHLIGHT 

Theme : Environment
Paper:GS-3

Recently, The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) ended in Montreal, Canada with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030.

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Context
2. About the Conference
3. Goals of Global Biodiversity Framework
4. UNFCCC and CBD
5. Industries in the Headlights
6. Road Ahead

Context : Recently, The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) ended in Montreal, Canada with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030.
 

About the Conference : 

• It is chaired by China, hosted by Canada, and resulted in the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
• The GBF aims to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights. 
• It also contains proposals to increase finance to developing countries – a major sticking point during talks

Goals of Global Biodiversity Framework : 

• 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.
• The GBF also features 23 targets to achieve by 2030, including:
• Effective conservation and management of at least 30 percent of the world’s land, coastal areas and oceans. 
• Currently, 17 percent of land and *8 percent of marine areas are under the protection
• Restoration of 30 percent of terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
• Reduce to near zero the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance and high ecological integrity.
• Halving global food waste.
• Phasing out or reforming subsidies that harm biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year, while scaling up positive incentives for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.
• Mobilizing at least $200 billion per year from public and private sources for biodiversity-related funding.
• Raising international financial flows from developed to developing countries to at least US$ 30 billion per year.
• Requiring transnational companies and financial institutions to monitor, assess, and transparently disclose risks and impacts on biodiversity through their operations, portfolios, supply and value chains.

UNFCCC and CBD : 

• The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CBD were both outcomes of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit — as was the third member of the family, the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), which deals specifically with the issue of land degradation. 
• The three environmental conventions seek to address the issues that overlap among them.
• All three agreements hold their separate COPs, the interlinkages, not very obvious in the 1990s, are getting increasingly evident. The success of anyone helps the cause of others too.
• Cartagena and Nagoya: The CBD has given rise to two ‘supplementary’ agreements — the Cartagena Protocol of 2003 and the Nagoya Protocol of 2014.
• Both agreements take their names from the places where they were negotiated.
• The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety seeks to protect biodiversity from genetically modified organisms by ensuring their safe handling, transport, and use. 
• The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing deals with the commercial utilization of biological and genetic resources, for example, by pharma companies.

Industries in the Headlights : 

• The $500bn reduction in harmful subsidies is likely to be one of the most impactful commitments for global markets in the near to medium term.
• Those most likely to be affected (not including the usual fossil-fuel producing culprits) include:

1. -Pesticides
2. -Agriculture – particularly beef, dairy, soybean, palm oil, rubber, coffee, chocolate
3. -Logging, forestry and downstream markets such as furniture
4. -Mining
5. -Tourism
6. -Polluting industries
7. -Plastic pollution – consumables, recycling, virgin fossil fuel plastic

• Grants for land-usage converting peatland to agriculture are likely to be withdrawn, and subsidies for roads and development into richly biodiverse areas are also likely to be targeted.

Road Ahead : 

• Success of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will be measured by our rapid and consistent progress in implementing what we have agreed to. 
• Countries would have to review existing laws relating to not just the environment, but areas such as industry, agriculture, and land use, to ensure that the national strategy and action plan adequately protects biodiversity.

FAQs : 

1. When were UNFCCC and CBD formed ?

ANS. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CBD were both outcomes of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit — as was the third member of the family, the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), which deals specifically with the issue of land degradation. 

2. What does GBF aim for ?

ANS. 

• The GBF aims to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights. 
• It also contains proposals to increase finance to developing countries – a major sticking point during talks.