Who lives up to the promises made two years ago? Not many. Only about 35 countries have a strategy on how to meet biodiversity targets, says Piero Visconti, Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation (BEC) Research Group Leader at IIASA. But in 2022, at COP15 in Montreal, the countries pledged to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s land and seas. At the same time, rich countries also don’t live up to their promise to help the poor with financing. This COP needs to show results.
This Conference of the Parties (COP) should be a COP of implementation, because countries should have submitted national targets in line with the 23 targets of the so-called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM GBF), as well as strategies to achieve them. But only 115 countries out of 193 produced at least one national target and only 35 submitted their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans. So clearly, we are very far behind.
European Union countries are among the virtuous ones in having submitted targets and strategies, including specific ones for protected areas. But so far, in the EU, only one third of the 30-percent target has been achieved to protect maritime systems. In terms of land areas, the EU is close to 30 percent. But often, not the right 30 percent are being protected. Countries declare areas that are easy to protect. But the challenge is to also protect or restore areas that are now used for food production or timber production, for example. This is a political challenge that is not tackled enough.
The Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework has included a target (Target 1) to put all land and all the oceans under participatory and biodiversity inclusive integrated spatial planning, which aims to resolve these trade-offs.
IIASA is pioneering approaches for Integrated Spatial Planning in support of the European Commission and EU Member States own targets for restoration, conservation and sustainable use in the NaturaConnect project. Specifically “NaturaConnect” is helping countries identify protected areas and multi-functional Green Infrastructure that connect these areas and provide important ecosystem services such as pollination and soil erosion control."
IIASA and scientific collaborators also applied integrated spatial planning approaches in India to identify priority areas for restoration that can capture carbon, restore biodiversity, and support the livelihoods of the people who live near and in the forests simultaneously.
Recently, IIASA has also collaborated with scientists in Brazil and UK to identify if and how can ambitious restoration goals can be achieved while ensuring that the Brazilian agricultural sector, especially small-holder farmers can thrive.
A COP of the People?
This Conference of the Parties (COP) has been renamed “The COP of the People”, because of the emphasis given to equity and justice for indigenous groups and local communities that more stand to lose from unfair and unsustainable overexploitation of natural resources.
But rich nations of the Global North don’t live up to their promise to help poorer nations in the Global South. In Montreal, they pledged to give 20 billion Dollars a year for biodiversity funding. Most of it should go to developing countries. This target is not being achieved yet and we are very far behind.
On top of that, the fact that about one trillion Dollars per year go into harmful subsidies for unstainable agriculture and fishery, is counterproductive and should be reduced and stopped.
For this COP to be a success, more countries must translate the global targets into national targets and speed up their action plans.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the IIASA blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.