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Executive Summary: Putting biodiversity on a path to recovery is essential for building back better from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Biodiversity and ecosystems feature prominently across many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. Biodiversity is explicitly highlighted in SDGs 14 and 15, but also underpins a much wider set of Goals. On our current trajectory, biodiversity, and the services it provides, will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights how critical the health of ecosystems is for human well-being and sustainable development. As with other issues, the COVID-19 pandemic had differential effects, both in terms of impacts on the environment as well impacts on policy processes. The build back better agenda reiterates the imperative to explore further avenues for leaving no one behind and building an inclusive and effective path for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Given the links between biodiversity loss and pandemic risk, as well as the importance of biodiversity for sustainable development more generally, recovery measures should also address the common drivers of biodiversity loss, invest in activities that reduce the risks of future pandemics, and build resilience and safeguards to achieve long term sustainable development.
Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity requires a significant shift away from ‘business as usual’ across a broad range of human activities, that can be catalyzed through the adoption and implementation of a robust post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Parties and other Governments, at all levels, relevant organizations and initiatives, indigenous peoples and local communities, women, youth, business and civil society organizations, as well as other stakeholders, have a key role to play in building momentum for the adoption and the implementation of a robust post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Options are available to the global community that could simultaneously slow, halt and ultimately reverse biodiversity loss, limit climate change and improve the capacity to adapt to it and meet other SDGs. A high level of technical, economic, and financial cooperation, assistance, commitment, engagement, and concerted efforts within and between countries is needed to achieve the global goals and targets, including the proposed targets of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and the SDGs. Policies that foster synergies on mitigating biodiversity loss and climate change, while also considering their societal impacts, offer the opportunity to maximize co-benefits and help to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Several of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 (Aichi Biodiversity) targets are reflected in the SDG targets. Given that the Aichi Biodiversity Targets have endpoints of 2020, the High-level Political Forum may wish to consider, as appropriate, providing further guidance on the possible role of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework in the further implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It may also wish to re-emphasize the essential role of biodiversity in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals; express its support for the ongoing process of developing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework; and further help to galvanize political momentum for an ambitious and practical post-2020 global biodiversity framework to be adopted at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022. 3
Introduction: A robust post-2020 global biodiversity framework to advance the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Biodiversity and ecosystem services contribute to human well-being. Globally, nearly half of the human population is directly dependent on natural resources for its livelihood, and many of the most vulnerable people, including indigenous peoples and local communities, women and girls, and youth, depend directly on biodiversity to fulfil their daily subsistence needs. Biodiversity is also at the centre of many economic activities, including those related to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism and as such underpins social and development priorities. Societies also have less tangible but highly-valued connections with nature that help to define identities, cultures and beliefs.
Biodiversity and ecosystems feature prominently across many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. Biodiversity is explicitly highlighted in SDGs 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land), but also underpins a much wider set of Goals. All the SDGs require adequate ecosystem services, including those related to water filtration, air quality regulation, land and soil quality, sustainable energy, climate mitigation, among others.
As highlighted in the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, on our current trajectory, biodiversity, and the services it provides, will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Around 1 million species are already at risk of extinction and there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss.
Further, as identified by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the direct drivers of change in nature with the largest global impact have been changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasion of alien species. These five direct drivers result from an array of underlying causes – the indirect drivers of change – which are in turn underpinned by societal values and behaviours that include production and consumption patterns, human population dynamics and trends, trade, technological innovations and local to global governance.
With biodiversity declining faster than at any time in human history, the deterioration of nature threatens quality of life and intensifies risks posed to well-being, our economies and our planet. Research by the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that $44 trillion of economic value generation – more than half of the world’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services. The loss of nature has therefore been identified as one of the most severe environmental risks, along with climate action failure and extreme weather.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights how critical the health of ecosystems is for human well-being and sustainable development. A special virtual session of CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice was convened in December 2020 on the interlinkages between biodiversity and health, the One Health approach, and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The importance of a more integrated, cross-sectoral and biodiversity-inclusive One Health approach that would address the common drivers of biodiversity loss, climate change, increased pandemic risk while supporting better health and well-being outcomes were raised as part of efforts to build back better and integrate biodiversity considerations into economic recovery plans and policies.
There are many opportunities for responses to COVID-19, including both short term stimulus measures and longer-term approaches to ‘build back better’ to contribute to sustainable development, and reduce the risk of future pandemics. However currently most post COVID-19 recovery measures neglect these opportunities. Restoring humanity’s relationship with nature is urgently needed to achieve a green and healthy recovery from COVID-19 and to build back better – which is the focus of the 2022 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. As part of the build back better agenda, policies that simultaneously address synergies between mitigating biodiversity loss and climate change, while also considering their societal impacts, offer the opportunity to maximize co-benefits and help advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As highlighted in the report of a joint workshop by IPBES and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change and biodiversity loss are closely interconnected and share common drivers through human activities; limiting global warming to ensure a habitable climate and protecting biodiversity are mutually supporting goals, and their achievement is essential for sustainably providing benefits to people.
With a view to putting biodiversity on a path to reach the 2050 Vision of world living in harmony with nature, the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, currently being negotiated under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), represents a historic opportunity to set an example of a global agreement for action on biodiversity, building on the outcomes of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. A first part of the UN Biodiversity Conference, comprising the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-15), the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP 10) and the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (COP-MOP 4), was held in Kunming, China from 11 to 15 October 2021.
The Kunming Declaration was adopted at the high-level segment of the meetings. Ministers and other heads of delegation committed to ensure the development, adoption and implementation of an effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework, that includes provision of the necessary means of implementation, in line with the Convention, and appropriate mechanisms for monitoring, reporting and review, to reverse the current loss of biodiversity and ensure that biodiversity is put on a path to recovery by 2030 at the latest, towards the full realization of the 2050 Vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature”.
The declaration also addresses a number of key elements needed for a successful post-2020 global biodiversity framework: mainstreaming biodiversity across all decision-making; phasing out and redirection of harmful subsidies; strengthening the rule of law; recognizing the full and effective participation and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities; and ensuring an effective mechanism to monitor and review progress, increase the provision of financial, technological and capacity building support among others. The post-2020 global biodiversity framework is expected to be finalized and adopted at the second part of CBD COP-15, which will take place in 2022.
Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity requires a significant shift away from ‘business as usual’ across a broad range of human activities. In addition, the second edition of the Local Biodiversity Outlooks emphasizes that putting the cultures and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities at the heart of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework would help to deliver sustainable livelihoods and wellbeing, and positive outcomes for biodiversity and climate. The adoption of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will pave the way for accelerating the uptake of transformative transitions and tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and a wide range of socio-economic challenges by delivering numerous co-benefits from healthy ecosystems.
Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic provide both an opportunity and a need to build back better and greener - for transformative changes towards a sustainable future in which all people are able to live in harmony with nature, leaving no one behind. In addition, ongoing discussions regarding the potential establishment of an agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, provide an opportunity for considering the strengthening of environmental dimensions within One Health approaches, building on the linkages between environmental degradation including biodiversity loss, and zoonotic diseases that may lead to future pandemics.
Global coordinated efforts and strong leadership are urgently needed to catalyze a decade of action for people, the planet, nature and climate, with a view to tackling the triple environmental crisis as a foundation for the sustainability of the planet and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
