By Clare Hamilton, RSGS Deputy Chief Executive

Image: Seline Bregman

Before joining RSGS, I spent almost 20 years working on international environmental treaty negotiations, which was a huge privilege. To be one of a small group of people representing the views of their country to the rest of the world is a unique experience, and a huge responsibility. Although I worked on treaties covering issues such as climate change and air pollution, the area I spent the most time on is biodiversity.

Image: Brigitta Lengyel

Autumn 2024 sees the Conferences of the Parties to the three Rio Conventions all happening within a few weeks of each other. This doesn’t happen very often, as each of the Conventions operates on a different schedule, which means that they very rarely coincide. The three Conventions – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) were all adopted at the Rio Summit in 1992. Together they seek to address the interlinked issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation. For the past 32 years they have forged parallel but separate paths, and 2024 offers an opportunity to bring them back together and to focus on interlinkages, synergies and co-benefits.

The first of the three meetings, the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) is taking place in Cali, Colombia, from 21 October – 1st November, and will set the tone for the other two, which take place from 11-22 November (climate) and 2-13 December (desertification). I am here in Colombia at as part of the European Union’s Presidency team, to provide strategic and legal guidance to the Presidency, oversee the day-to-day work of the team, fill the gaps in negotiations and lead bilateral meetings on behalf of the EU where needed.

Image: Clare Hamilton

These meetings, known as ‘Conferences of the Parties’ set the strategic direction for the international community for the coming years. The last biodiversity COP, in 2022, adopted the Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. This COP is about creating a solid basis for implementation, ensuring that all of the mechanisms are in place from indicators and monitoring frameworks through to financial resources.

Image: Seline Bregman

The biodiversity COP is smaller than climate, but will still see 23,000 people attend the COP and associated events across its two weeks. It covers the work of four separate legally binding treaties and will deal with 67 separate agenda items leading to the adoption of decisions on issues as diverse as biodiversity and health, synthetic biology, digital sequence information, plant conservation and invasive alien species. In addition to the negotiations, there are themed days, focusing on issues and sectors including health, business and finance. The COP is also split across two zones: the blue zone, where the negotiations take place, and the green zone, which hosts associated activities and is open to the public. So far, I’ve barely made it outside the blue zone in the daylight.

Although the agenda is extremely wide ranging, there are a few big ticket issues that are likely to go down to the wire, meaning that they are unlikely to be resolved without interventions from Ministers, who are able to go beyond national negotiating positions in some instances. These issues include:

- Resource mobilisation: essentially how to create adequate funding flows to enable all countries – developed and developing – to be able to afford to fully implement the global biodiversity framework. Some of this will be national allocations, some official development assistance, some from the private sector, and some from reform of harmful subsidies and incentives.

- Digital sequence information: how to share the benefits of genetic resources in digital form in a fair way.

- Mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and review: how to help countries to understand their own progress towards meeting the goals and targets of the global biodiversity framework in a transparent way.

- Involvement and engagement of indigenous peoples and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles as custodians of biodiversity.

Image: Fanny Coppens

So how is it going so far? We are not quite half-way through the negotiations and it’s fair to say that progress is mixed. Some of the items are well on their way to concluding. After upwards of 10 years of trying, it looks like we will finally have a decision on ecologically and biologically sensitive marine areas. A decision on mainstreaming biodiversity considerations across sectors also seems likely to succeed. Most, if not all, of the “big four” will not be resolved until the end of next week and only time will tell if we will be successful.

I’m quietly optimistic. The Colombian Government and Ministers are deeply invested in the conservation of biodiversity and really want this COP to be a success for both people and the planet. Ministers will start arriving on Monday, including Leonore Gewessler, the Austrian Environment Minister who still risks prosecution by her own government for voting in favour of the EU’s landmark Nature Restoration Law earlier this year.  Without her vote, which went against her political instructions but followed strong public opinion in favour of nature protection, the law would not have passed.

The delegations here in Colombia are on the whole made up of people who are passionate about biodiversity and will do their utmost to get a good result that builds on the foundations established two years ago and puts in place the tools and mechanisms we need to deliver on the commitments in the Global Biodiversity Framework. 

Image: Els Van De Velde

Having a COP in a megadiverse country like Colombia also serves as a welcome reminder of why we are doing what we are doing. As I write this, I can hear frogs chirping and cicadas whining. An invasion of leaf-cutter ants into the meeting rooms after a rain storm saw delegates carrying them back outside and placing them carefully on the grass. Biodiversity brings us together: in no other forum do discussions stop so everyone can look at a vermillion flycatcher or a saffron finch. If we can come together to enjoy watching biodiversity, surely we can also come together to save it.