Copy COP: Can Nature Take a Leaf from the Climate Book?
Photo: Unsplash For our third article in a series on Climate & Biodiversity, we are privileged to have this expert contribution from Dr Richard Benwell, CEO of Wildlife & Countryside Link on the critical importance of the forthcoming Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The 15th COP of the CBD has now been moved back - again - with a virtual opening in October 2021, and in-person negotiations set for April-May 2022 in Kunming, China.
Richard Benwell sets out some of the key measures needed to improve the working of the CBD and the protection of nature, at home and abroad. It remains to be seen whether the UK Environment Bill will be enacted before COP26, as promised by the UK government.
We have also attached a link to the statement made by H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China on 30 September 2020, about China’s aims in hosting the CBD COP. With the IPBES warning that as many as 1 million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction, the need for international leadership on this issue has never seemed more urgent.
There are two COPs coming.
They’re basically about the same thing – one climate, one nature – but in many ways they couldn’t be more different.
The climate COP – the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention Framework on Climate Change – has the global media abuzz. It has the fire of impending disaster, a plan for hundreds of billions of dollars in global finance, and strictly defined emissions reductions objectives, aiming to keep global warming to no more than 1.5˚C.
The nature COP – the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – is relatively unknown. It is meant to be able to avert an ecological crisis, but it is starved of finance and bedeviled by ill-defined objectives.
Both treaties were born of the great environmental moment in 1992, the Earth Summit, but from there their paths have diverged. Though there is still an enormous amount to do on climate change, the UNFCCC has successfully reached into national jurisdictions and effected an extraordinary transformation in our energy infrastructure and other sectors. By contrast, the CBD has barely scratched the surface of conservation need and the decline of wildlife continues apace, with a 68% reduction in global species abundance since 1970.
Spot the difference
A key difference between the two treaties is the specificity of their objectives and, as a result, their ability to hold individual countries to account for delivery.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been able to describe detailed scenarios for the greenhouse gas emissions budgets that would keep global temperatures from rising too far above pre-industrial levels. This clarity has translated into measurable and accountable Nationally Determined Contributions, with precise goals like achieving net zero emissions. In turn, these national goals can be divvied up to responsible sectors (like energy, transport and farming) with clear obligations for change.
By contrast, although the brilliant Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has been able to describe the decline of biodiversity and its causes in great detail, this has yet to translate into measurable and timebound targets for the Convention on Biological Diversity, or for the countries and industries that can make a difference.
The CBD has twice set a global ambition to halt the decline of biodiversity, and twice it has failed, in part because this overarching aim has not been converted into measurable targets attributable to individual parties and sectors. The parties to the CBD must take a leaf from the UNFCCC book and set a bold goal that is measurable and divisible, so that it can be passed on to governments and industries for action and accountability.
This time, however, rather than risk a third flop, there is a risk that the CBD will simply give up.
In the most recent draft of the COP-15 agreement, released in July, there is a marked lack of SMART targets, indicators, baselines, and monitoring frameworks. The ambition is described as a goal to “stabilise trends of loss” by 2030, with no quantitative measure of success.
Unless the CBD raises its sights and clarifies its focus with a clear and measurable target to halt and begin to reverse the decline of nature by 2030, our chances of averting ecological emergency are slim.
Biodiversity in the balance
Luckily, there are signs that improvements can still be made.
In an earlier “zero draft” of the CBD treaty, there was a much clearer articulation of a target to increase the abundance of species on average, with square brackets in place for a percentage to be determined in negotiation.
This reflects an awakening of interest and appetite in global nature recovery that has been expressed in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature: a commitment to reverse the decline of nature by 2030, endorsed by Heads of State and Government from 88 countries. Similar sentiments were expressed in the recent G7 environment ministers’ communique.
What will it take to turn that rhetoric into a legal treaty text?
As with so many big international diplomatic moments, the leadership of a few ambitious countries can make all the difference. This time, the UK is in a unique position to play that role, with two perfect platforms for pioneering change.
The Environment Bill
In September, the Environment Bill will return to Parliament. To date, it has not reached the inspiring heights of legal precedent-setting that the Climate Change Act did for carbon. Back then, the adoption of a legal target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was an act of bravery that reverberated in statute around the world.
In the Environment Bill, in response to a strong public campaign for a State of Nature target, the Government promised a “net zero for nature”. Unfortunately, what we have so far amounts to a legal encouragement, rather than a legal duty. The Government has said it will set a target for species abundance for 2030, but it has failed to include the critical ingredient of the level of ambition: to halt nature’s decline by 2030.
We know that not every action has been planned out that could deliver such a bold target; we know that not every cost has been calculated for implementation. But the point is that we know that the target can be achieved and that the costs of inaction would be greater.
Politicians from all parties are lining up behind the idea of the State of Nature target (led by Sir John Randall, Baroness Maggie Jones, Baroness Kate Parminter, and Sir John Krebs) and the Government should listen to their call. Setting a clear, measurable and binding target to halt the decline of nature in law, on the face of the Environment Bill, before COP-15 would be a tremendously powerful signal of intent that could clinch the deal for a strong global treaty.
COP 26
Then, of course, there is the leverage of the COP-26 presidency. The UK Government should use its platform to make unequivocally clear that the climate COP will only be a success if it is accompanied by a successful nature COP.
After all, the CBD may have lots to learn from the UNFCCC, but climate campaigners must take a leaf out of nature’s book too. There is simply no way to achieve net zero emissions and adapt to climate change unless we also restore nature. And doing that requires not just a narrow focus on one or two carbon-sequestering habitats – it requires wholesale ecosystem restoration. Ultimately, the only effective and enduring nature-based solution to climate change will be to halt and reverse the decline of nature.
The stories of the two COPs have diverged for too long.
If the UK Government can tell the tale of the interdependence of climate and nature at COP-26 and get the letter of the law right in the UK with a strong State of Nature target in the Environment Bill to halt nature’s decline by 2030, then we can finally turn the page for a new chapter of environmental improvement—for nature and climate alike.
At COP26andbeyond we addressed some of these issues in earlier articles, including –
Climate & Biodiversity: What it can mean to lose a species –
https://www.cop26andbeyond.com/blog/what-it-can-mean-to-lose-a-species
Climate & Biodiversity: Converging Conventions?
https://www.cop26andbeyond.com/blog/converging-conventions
For the IPBES see –
For an explanation of the IPBES estimate that 1 million animal and plant species are at risk, see this article by IPBES Lead Author Dr Andy Purvis –
https://ipbes.net/news/million-threatened-species-thirteen-questions-answers
For the Convention on Biological Diversity, see –
Statement by H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, 30 September 2020, as host of the next Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity –