Understanding the Importance of COP15

By Nancy Tudor, Four League Environment Committee
April 20, 2023

You may be familiar with the United Nations Convention on Climate Change COP27 (Conference of Parties), but are you familiar with COP15, a conference on biological diversity? COP27 and COP15 are very closely related. However, climate change gets much more attention than biological diversity. Climate COPs have a clear focus to limit global temperature rises to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while aiming to limit heating to 1.5°C, as settled under the Paris agreement in 2015. Currently, the UN’s biodiversity process does not have an equivalent focal point. In December 2022, nearly 200 governments from around the world came together in Montreal, Canada, to agree on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 to halt and reverse nature loss. Nature is critical to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Adoption of a bold global biodiversity framework that addresses the key drivers of nature loss is needed to secure our own health and well-being alongside that of the planet.

Nature is in crisis. For the past three decades governments have been meeting to ensure the survival of the species and ecosystems that undermine human civilization. Earth is experiencing the largest loss of life since dinosaurs, and humans are to blame. The way we mine, pollute, hunt, farm, build, and travel are putting at least one million species at risk of extinction, according to scientists. The sixth mass extinction in geological history has already begun, some scientists assert, with billions of individual populations being lost. The aim of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is for countries to conserve the natural world, its sustainable use, and to share the benefits of its genetic resources.

The COP15 agreement embeds the promotion of human rights and the “rights of nature” into a plan to protect and restore biodiversity through 2030. The “rights of nature” recognizes that nature and everything it encompasses—from animal and plant species to rivers, mountains, and the soil—possess inherent rights similar to those of human beings.

The COP15 agreement consists of four overarching global goals to protect nature and the Earth’s ecosystems.

1. Agreement to conserve 30% of earth by the end of the decade: Protecting a third of the planet for the long-term survival of humanity, the most high-profile target at COP15.

2. Indigenous rights at the heart of conservation: Several scientific studies have shown that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of nature, representing 5% of humanity but protecting 80% of earth’s biodiversity.

3. Reform of environmentally harmful subsidies: The world spends at least $1.8tn every year on government subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a study earlier this year.

4. Nature disclosures for businesses: This would require governments to ensure that large and transnational companies disclose “their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity.” According to the UN, biodiversity loss is rapidly shooting up the agenda of corporate risks. Other targets focus on reducing pollution from all sources, requiring businesses to disclose their environmental impacts and dependence on biodiversity, managing agriculture and fisheries sustainably and implementing legal, policy and educational measures to encourage people to make “sustainable consumption choices.”

Conclusion

Every 10 years, governments agree on new targets on protecting biodiversity. The world has so far failed to meet any UN targets on halting the loss of nature. Awareness of this crisis is greater. The COP15 biodiversity agreement is not binding; therefore, it will ultimately be up to governments to ensure that those rights are protected as conservation projects are carried out to further the plan’s goals. Hopefully the agreement will ensure an adequate means of implementation, including financial resources, technical and scientific cooperation, and access to and transfer of technology to fully implement the COP15 global biodiversity framework.