UN biodiversity framework approved at COP15 in Montreal

In the early hours of December 19 in Montreal, the 15^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) announced the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This landmark agreement has already been dubbed the ‘Paris Agreement for Biodiversity’ due to its importance in combating global biodiversity loss.

In summary, the GBF consists of four goals and 23 targets that address a wide variety of issues. The most significant ones are highlighted below.

Land and marine area conservation commitments

In considering the goals of substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems, halting human-induced extinction of threatened species and reducing the extinction rate and species risk tenfold by 2050, the GBF provides that the States Parties must:

• Ensure that at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems have been restored or are actively under restoration by 2030; and
• Ensure that by 2030, at least 30% of global lands, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans are under protection – especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem-related functions and services.

Private sector contributions

The framework also set targets for the private sector, though they are less ambitious than what was proposed in the initial drafts. It provides that States Parties should adopt legal, administrative, or policy measures to encourage and enable businesses (especially large and transnational companies and financial institutions) to:

• Regularly monitor, assess and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies, and impacts on biodiversity, including along their operations, supply and value chains, and portfolios;
• Provide information to consumers to promote sustainable consumption patterns;
• Report on compliance with access and benefit-sharing regulations and measures, as applicable.

Financing and subsidies

The GBF has sought to address incentives such as subsidies that harm biodiversity, establishing a target obligating States Parties to:

• Identify such incentives by 2025;
• Eliminate, phase out, or reform them to achieve subsidy reductions of at least USD 500 billion per year by 2030;
• Scale up positive incentives for the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity.

The issue of financing was a sticking point for the GBF. In order to achieve the goal of progressively closing the biodiversity financing gap of USD 700 billion per year, the GBF ended up setting the target of increasing financial resources from all sources (public or private) to least USD 200 billion per year by 2030. This target includes increasing international biodiversity-related financial resources and development assistance from developed countries to developing countries to at least USD 20 billion per year by 2025 and at least USD 30 billion by 2030.

COP15 also called on the Global Environment Facility to create a Global Biodiversity Framework Fund by 2023. This was a controversial point in the final stretch of negotiations in Montreal, with the Democratic Republic of Congo favoring the creation of a new specific fund for biodiversity (not linked to the Global Fund), which ultimately did not occur.

Recognizing the contributions and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities

The GBF expressly recognizes the roles and contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities as guardians of biodiversity and partners in its conservation, restoration, and sustainable use. It provides that their rights, traditional knowledge, worldviews, values, and practices must be respected in implementing the framework, including through free, prior, and informed consent and participation in decision-making. One of the GBF’s goals even provides for a substantial increase in the sharing of benefits derived from the use of genetic resources by 2050.

The GBF must be implemented with a human rights-based approach, recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Reducing chemical pollution and plastic waste

One important GBF target states the need to reduce the negative impacts of pollution by 2030 through a series of measures such as:

• Reducing the excess nutrients lost to the environment by at least 50%;
• Reducing the risk from pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals by at least 50%;
• Increasing efforts to prevent, reduce, and eliminate plastic pollution.

Connecting biodiversity and climate

The GBF has set a specific target that addresses the relationship between climate change and biodiversity, emphasizing the need to minimize climate change and ocean acidification impacts on biodiversity, increasing its resilience through mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction actions. Such actions should include nature-based solutions and/or ecosystem-based approaches, minimizing the negative impacts of climate action on biodiversity and fostering positive ones.

Monitoring GBF goals

To check that States Parties are complying with the GBF targets, the framework has established mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and reviewing progress, including:

• The States Parties’ National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) must be reviewed and updated to account for the GBF goals and targets, and reported in a standardized format by COP16 (set to take place in Turkey in the second half of 2024);
• National reports should be submitted by 2026 and 2029;
• Global reviews of information from NBSAPs to assess the contribution to meeting targets should be conducted at the next COPs;
• A review of collective global progress towards meeting the targets should be conducted at COPs 17 and 19.

By 2025, the GBF’s monitoring mechanisms must involve collecting publicly available data related to each indicator. Data sources and indicators must be compiled and regularly updated no longer than every five years.

Digital sequence information

In light of discussions preceding COP15 on how sharing the benefits of access to digital sequence information on genetic resources (DSI) could take place, a multilateral mechanism was agreed upon that will include a global fund established as part of the GBF. The States Parties have until COP16 to define how this mechanism will be developed and made operational.

However, this decision reiterates that the mechanism must not prevent research and innovation, and must also uphold the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including respect for the traditional knowledge associated with the genetic resource that they possess.

For further information on environmental matters, please contact Mattos Filho’s Environmental Law & Climate Change practice area.