STATEMENT: UN Biodiversity Summit COP16 Kicks Off in Colombia

STATEMENT: UN Biodiversity Summit COP16 Kicks Off in Colombia

October 18, 2024

Statement

International Climate Action

Cali, Colombia (October 18, 2024) - Countries will soon gather at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, which kicks off on October 21. This will be the first biodiversity summit since countries adopted a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 at COP15 in Montreal in 2022 - the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

That agreement included targets to conserve 30% of land and water and restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030 (the "30x30" goals), part of a set of 23 global targets. At COP16 countries will assess progress toward those targets. The conference occurs as the world's biodiversity is declining at a rapid rate, with the tropics losing 10 soccer fields' of forests every minute and around one million animal and plant species at risk of extinction.

Following is a statement by Crystal Davis, WRI's Global Director of Food, Land and Water:

"This COP is a test of how serious countries are about upholding their international commitments to stop the rapid loss of biodiversity. The world has no shot at doing so without richer countries providing more financial support to developing countries - which contain most of the world's biodiversity.

"The central measure of success will be whether countries are turning their commitments to conserve and restore at least 30% of the world's land and water into national targets, backed by actionable national plans. Their actions must focus not just on numbers, but on protecting the places with the highest risk of extinction for species.

"Critically, countries need to take action to reduce the key drivers of biodiversity loss, such as overfishing, expanding agriculture into critical ecosystems, and enabling harmful subsidies, corruption, and organized nature crime.

"Governments should actively involve Indigenous Peoples and local communities as key partners in their national biodiversity plans, recognizing that they need secure land and resource rights, authority, and more finance to continue safeguarding biodiversity.

"To protect the world's biodiversity, developing countries will need far more finance. A major test at COP16 will be whether wealthier developed countries step up their financial pledges to meet their promise of providing $20 billion per year for developing countries by 2025. More private sector finance will also be essential - but it cannot substitute for international public finance or reforms to harmful agriculture subsidies.

"Finally, countries need to operationalize the monitoring framework to track progress toward the Global Biodiversity Framework targets. This includes determining which indicators to track and identifying data sources and providers that are both internationally credible and politically acceptable. The framework should emphasize a few core principles: monitoring should be transparent, cost-effective at scale, flexible and open source - and should recognize the importance of independent monitoring alongside official government systems."