The Biodiversity Commitment

Source: The post is based on an article “The Biodiversity Commitment” published in The Indian Express on 21^st December 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Environment

Relevance: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

News: The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been concluded in the Montreal, Canada recently. The Montreal meeting was the 15th edition of this conference also known as COP15.

What is CBD?

It is a 1993 agreement that meet every two years to work on a global plan to halt biodiversity loss and restore natural ecosystems.

It is not just about conservation and restoration of ecosystems. It is also about sustainable use of natural resources, and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of these resources. It was formed in the Rio Earth Summit 1992.

Read here: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

What were the three major climate conventions that were formed in the Rio Earth Summit 1992?

The three conventions were – a) The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), b) The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and c) the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD).

All the three environmental conventions seek to address the issues that overlap among them and the success of any one helps the cause of the others too.

For example, climate change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss while changes in land and ocean use have an impact on climate change. Land degradation appears as a cause as well as effect in both climate change and biodiversity loss.

Therefore, the issues overlap, even though all the three hold their separate CoPs.

What are the outcomes of the current Montreal meeting?

Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – It contains four goals and 23 targets that need to be achieved by 2030. It is being compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change that is guiding global climate action.

The four goals and 23 targets in the GBF is commonly referred to as the 30×30 target. It means to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s lands, oceans and coastal areas by 2030.

Restoring/Maintaining the natural ecosystem – The overall goal is to ensure that all natural ecosystems are either maintained, enhanced or restored substantially with an overall increase in the area of natural ecosystems by 2050.

Reduction in Extinction – Another goal is to ensure a ten-fold reduction in extinction rate of species, A recent report said that about 1 million species face extinction if urgent action is not taken.

Reducing food wastage – A commitment has been made to reduce global food wastage by half, reduce the risk of pesticides and other chemicals by half, and cut at least US$ 500 billion every year from subsidies that harm biodiversity.

Note: The meeting in Montreal that concluded was the second part of COP15, the first part was held in Kunming in China last year. Kunming was supposed to hold the entire COP15 but due to Covid-19 restrictions, it could only organise a hybrid event in October last year.

What were the previous agreements of the CBD and what are the challenges?

There were two supplementary agreements – a) the Cartagena Protocol of 2003 and b) the Nagoya Protocol of 2014.

Cartagena Protocol – The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety seeks to protect biodiversity from genetically modified organisms by ensuring their safe handling, transport and use. For example, the interaction of GM crops with nature are not yet fully understood which is why they are cultivated on a separate farm.

Nagoya Protocol – the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing deals with the commercial utilisation of biological and genetic resources.

It asks the host countries to provide access to its genetic resources in a legal, fair and non-arbitrary manner and offers them a fair and equitable share of benefits arising out of the utilisation of those resources.

Moreover, countries in 2010, at COP10 in Nagoya, Japan had agreed to a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity containing 20 targets also known as the Aichi targets.

However, a recent report showed that none of these targets were achieved at the end of the decade (2010-20). Therefore, implementing the GBF and the current targets will remain a challenge.