COP15: Our key takeaways

At the end of 2022, COP15 – the 15th conference of the parties for the Convention on Biological Biodiversity - continued its two-week negotiation for the protection and loss of biodiversity. The positive momentum during negotiations kept going, and finally, after a wait until 3:30am, the once-in-a-decade opportunity to secure the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was accepted. This was met with the great delight and applause from the hundreds of people who had stayed up all night waiting for the announcement, including SLR’s Ida Bailey. She shares her thoughts and key takeaways on the outcome below.

The Global Biodiversity Framework outlines 23 ambitious targets to reverse biodiversity loss by the end of the decade, including goals such as:

• 2 - By 2030, 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland water and costal and marine ecosystems are under restoration.
• 3 - Ensure and enable by 2023 at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, and costal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem function, are effectively conserved and managed.
• 7 - By 2030, we need to reduce pollution and the negative impacts from all sources, to levels that don’t further harm biodiversity and the functions of ecosystems.
• 10 - Ensure that areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the sustainable use of biodiversity.
• 11 - For the benefit of people and nature, restore, maintain and enhance ecosystems functions and services, such as regulation of air, water and climate.
• 14 - Ensure the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes, poverty eradication strategies, strategic environmental assessments, environmental impact assessments and, as appropriate, national accounting.
• 15 - Take legal, administrative or policy measures to encourage and enable business, and in particular to ensure that large and transnational companies and financial institutions regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity.
• 18 - By 2025, identify and eliminate, phase out, or reform incentives, including subsidies, that are harmful for biodiversity, in a proportionate, just, fair, effective and equitable way.

Many of these targets will result in rapid in change for businesses, in particular target 15. Fortunately, at COP15, leaders in the business and finance communities showed clear recognition of their dependencies and impacts on nature, and the business and investment risks associated with these. Leaders were vocal in their support for ambitious targets, and requirements for businesses to report on their impacts and dependencies on nature.

Meeting these targets is critical to global, social, and financial wellbeing, and for many of them we have only seven years before the deadline. It is time to act, and to implement actions as swiftly as is practical. With no time to waste, perfecting approaches and strategies may not be the goal, but instead we can collaborate closely to align approaches and standards, and to learn from each other.

Fundamentally, we need to get the planet back within the planetary boundary for biodiversity. It will take time for policies and guidance to be produced and aligned in support of this, and biodiversity restoration and enhancement will take much longer. The message is: we only have seven years until 2030, let’s get started!