At the very beginning of COP15 on December 7, this side event gave panelists the opportunity to provide insights, reflections and proposals to the still not conclusive targets in view of their prompt and effective implementation and to share their impression on latest progress towards a transformative agreement in the coming weeks at COP15.
High-level personalities representing the sectors of conservation, business, Subnational and Local Governments, Youth, and the climate community reflected on the following subjects:
- Creating positive subsidies for biodiversity (Target 18);
- Reducing pollution, pesticides and nutrients (Target 7);
- Accomplishing nature-positive productive landscapes / seascapes and mainstreaming (mainly Targets 1, 10, 14, 18);
- Making sustainable production and consumption real (mainly Targets 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19).
The event was introduced by Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, CBD Nature Action Agenda Champion, who made an analogy expressing that as for the solar system, we need stars, adding that “For climate, the star is 1.5 degrees”, noting also that for biodiversity, the star is nature positive and concluding that “ We need to give more content to the nature positive concept.”
Aurélie Godefroy, Deputy Head of Unit, Environment, Sustainable Natural Resources, DG for International Partnerships, European Commission welcomed the participants after Manuel’s introduction, saying that “As European Union, we very much value the engagement of non-state actors and local and subnational governments”, completing her intervention by stressing out that “The GBF should be a framework for action by all and calling all actors to join forces.”
© Aurélie Godefroy, Deputy Head of Unit, Environment, Sustainable Natural Resources, DG for International Partnerships, European Commission. / Photo: Daniel Murillo
The project’s team leader, Hugo Rivera Mendoza moderated through the evening for the panelists and over 50 participants on site representing various actors from the parties and the civil society, as well as the audience joining online, and noted that “A successful global biodiversity framework will depend on both the level of ambition for each of its goals and targets, and our capacity to give life to the concept of whole-of-society approach”.
Starting with the topic of the Nature-positive concept, Gavin EDWARDS, Director, Global Nature-Positive Initiative at WWF International expressed “We hope that nature-positive will be the unified mission of the GBF that we can all get behind”, adding that “Through a participatory approach, landscape planning can be successfully implemented involving all actors.”
Eshadi MENDIS, Global Youth Biodiversity Network-GYBN followed, noting that “Transformative education is the key to changing our behaviors and teaching both our generation and the future ones how to change our consumption patterns and how to be empathetic with nature”.
This was followed by a statement by another member of GYBN, Jessica MICKLEM-KOLENIĆ, who asked the participants to “spread the voices of youth to develop a transformative global biodiversity framework able to safeguard the wellbeing of present and coming generations.”
Representing the business sector, Michael OFOSUHENE-WISE, Climate and Nature Manager at Business for Nature, said that “Many companies are already taking strong action on biodiversity”, mentioning also that “we need to scale up, we need regulation to create a level playing field for the sectors that are struggling to act”.
© Kobie BRAND, Director Biodiversity, Nature and Health at ICLEI. Photo: Daniel Murillo
In another inspiring intervention, Kobie BRAND, Director Biodiversity, Nature and Health at ICLEI was next, showing how cities are agile and incubators of change, requesting also the audience to “Come together and change things faster than national governments”, adding that “We can say and do what sometimes is said to be impossible”.
Paula PINTO ZAMBRANO, International Policy Analyst, Climate & Company explained that “If we want to produce and consume in a sustainable way, we need companies to start disclosing on the impact and dependencies that they have on biodiversity”.
Prasanna KUMAR, BIODEV 2030 Fiji, gave a practical best case for business engagement as a young female entrepreneur and gave insights into how the BIODEV2030 multi-stakeholder dialogue brought to her attention the importance of mainstreaming biodiversity in the kava industry in Fiji.
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