Hamburg, December 20th: F20 highly appreciates the results of the UNCBD COP15 meeting which took place from December 7th to 19th in Montreal, Canada and which was hosted by the government of China. Delegates were tasked to design the so called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and they did deliver on some of the key issues: A global target to protect nature and a financing roadmap how to get there.
The outcome recognizes that urgent action is required globally, regionally and nationally “to achieve sustainable development so that the drivers of undesirable change that have exacerbated biodiversity loss will be reduced and/or reversed […]”. It also states the goal to “protecting 30% of land and waters by 2030, a landmark goal informally known as 30-by-30, and suggests restoring 30% of degraded lands.”
Bowen Zhang (SEE Foundation, China): “This is indeed an encouraging outcome of the CBD which we believe will lead to concrete actions to nature protection in the years to come.”
In order to get there, the outcome document lists four long-term goals for 2050 such as “the integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems” or “the sustainable management of nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services”. Klaus Milke, Chair of the Foundations Platform F20: “Though being overdue, the goals provide good guidance for future decisions on sustainable development and give an idea of what has been insufficiently taken into account in the past.”
The four goals are backed by a list of 23 targets including that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration. F20 also appreciates the financial target of $200 billion from all sources, including the public and private sectors per year for conservation initiatives, though the contribution of wealthy countries in this is smaller than some developing had wanted.
There is an obvious synergy between climate and biodiversity. The scientific evidence has highlighted that the climate change and biodiversity crises are highly intertwined.
From the angle of F20’s philanthropy community and based on our Nexus Report, we believe that more funds from the private sector and from philanthropy should be made available to bridge the still existing funding gap.
Foundations and NGOs can help to accelerate the Corporate Accountability on Nature. We need to hold corporations accountable for a nature-positive economy. But accountability and transparency go hand in hand. That is why many institutions including SEE are advocating for mandatory disclosure requirements for businesses. Although the word “mandatory” is absent from the final text of Target 15, it is the first time on the agenda that the businesses in particular the large and transnational companies and financial institutions should monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity.