The Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU presented to the Member States, on Monday 3 October, draft conclusions to fine-tune the EU’s position at the final segment of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15, Montreal 7-19 December - see EUROPE 12992/7).
Since 2020, when the COP was originally scheduled to take place in China, the EU has been working to ensure that it results in an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) with a strong monitoring mechanism and key indicators, which is to biodiversity what the Paris Agreement is to climate.
On this basis, the draft conclusions detail these ambitions and include a reference to all relevant UN treaties, conventions or negotiations.
Objectives and targets. According to the text, the main objectives to be defended by the EU for 2030 are the following:
- effectively conserving at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of oceans, safeguarding the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities;
- stepping up action to effectively restore degraded ecosystems (3 billion hectares of land and freshwater ecosystems and 3 billion hectares of ocean ecosystems) to put biodiversity on a path to recovery;
- eliminating all illegal, unsustainable or dangerous harvesting, trade and use of wildlife;
- halting human-induced extinctions of threatened species by 2030 (and all such extinctions by 2050);
- reducing the rate of introduction of invasive alien species;
- harnessing the full potential of nature-based solutions, reducing the levels and risks of pollution from all sources;
- setting out numerical reduction targets for nutrients and pesticides;
- ending plastic pollution.
Global framework and monitoring mechanism. The text calls for the adoption in Montreal of a ‘planning, reporting and review mechanism’ and a robust monitoring framework with headline indicators to ensure and strengthen implementation and encourage political commitment. It specifies that this framework will include:
- updated or revised National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) as the main instruments for CBD implementation at the national level, which should be aligned with the goals and targets of the GBF in time for consideration by the COP16;
- national targets, either as part of the NBSAPs or separately, communicated according to an agreed format;
- national reports on progress in implementation, using the core indicators, the complementary indicators of the monitoring framework and other indicators.
- an assessment of the level of collective ambition on the basis of national targets and voluntary commitments by non-state actors;
- a transparent global stocktaking process, with high-level political participation, to assess collective ambition and progress in implementing the GBF, followed by a response phase to increase national ambition and implementation where necessary.
Financing. On this most difficult part of the negotiations, the draft stresses the importance of mobilising dedicated, predictable and adequate resources for biodiversity. Recalling that the EU has committed to doubling its funding, particularly for the most vulnerable countries (see EUROPE 13029/28, 13026/10), it insists that all countries mobilise additional resources to fill the funding gap. Identifying in 2025 subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity with a view to eliminating them by 2030 is one of the stated ways to achieve this.
Marine Biodiversity. The text states that the exploitation of marine minerals in Area 23 may have effects on the marine environment and biodiversity and supports the work of EU Member States in the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to put in place an appropriate regulatory regime for potential future deep sea mining.
The draft conclusions also address the related protocols to the Convention on Biological Diversity in view of the meetings of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on the Sharing of Benefits from Biodiversity Resources.
See the draft conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/3hz (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)