The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16) will be held in Cali, Colombia, from October 21th to November 1st.
The conference will gather government leaders, the business community, indigenous leaders, scientific experts and NGOs to address the “silent crisis” of biodiversity loss, in the aim to reverse habitat loss, protect endangered species and preserve the ecosystems on which all life depends.
Remember COP15?
At the COP15 summit in 2022, the global community committed to reversing biodiversity loss and adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This Framework agreed a set of four long-term goals for 2050 on biodiversity loss:
- Protect and restore the integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems, increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050
- Prosper with Nature: make a sustainable use and management of biodiversity, and value, maintain and enhance nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services.
- Share fairly the monetary and non-monetary benefits from the use of genetic resources and the traditional knowledge associated with them
- Invest and collaborate: foster financial resources, capacity-building, technical and scientific cooperation, access to and transfer of technology.
COP15 also set 23 targets pinned to a 2030 deadline, the most famous of which is the 30x30 target – a commitment to conserve 30% of land, water and seas by 2030 through the establishment of protected areas and conservation measures that recognize indigenous and traditional territories.
What is the goal of COP16?
COP16’s goal is to transform the Global Biodiversity Framework into actionable plans at national scale. All parties to the convention are expected to present their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans ahead of the conference. The conference will chart nations’ progress on these commitments since 2022. Parties will discuss how the plans should be monitored, which accountability mechanisms should be in place, how countries can collaborate on technologies, and which financing plan can be implemented. Resource mobilization if a particularly delicate issue. COP15 had stated that developed countries should contribute at least $20 billion every year by 2025 and at least $30 billion a year by 2030. Additionally, countries had committed to identify subsidies that deplete biodiversity by 2025, and then eliminate, phase out or reform them. Where do we stand on this?
Beyond these financial matters, we, as asset managers and investors, are scrutinizing any enhancement in corporate disclosures on their impacts and dependencies for their own operations, their supply chains and portfolios. This is a crucial building-block for biodiversity risk assessment, and, before that, for biodiversity preservation.