UN urges quicker action on biodiversity conservation

Experts and leaders on the sidelines of the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly on Wednesday called for acceleration of the national biodiversity conservation strategies and action plans that were made at the UN Biodiversity conference — COP15.

During a meeting held in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada, the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted as a guide to global action for the conservation of global biodiversity through 2030. China holds the COP15 presidency.

Speaking at a side event which was aimed at evaluating the framework's implementation progress, Huang Runqiu, the Chinese minister of ecology and environment, said the framework implementation is an open and inclusive idea.

"We hope to create vitality with other existing trajectory processes and initiatives to jointly promote the comprehensive implementation of the Kunming framework," he said.

Huang pointed to the fact that China has invested 1.5 billion yuan ($208.5 million) to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support the conservation of biodiversity in developing countries.

He said in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, and other institutions, China is in the process of establishing the fund secretariat, the fund management system as well as exploring fund project reserves and studying project implementation models.

"This year, the Chinese government has arranged 50 million yuan as the startup capital of the Kunming Fund, so the first batch of projects may be implemented before COP16," Huang said.

"We welcome countries and institutions to donate to the Fund," he said, adding only multilateralism actions can address the global challenge of loss of biodiversity.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said implementing Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is a major priority.

"We know what we have to do and we have clear targets about how we have to do it. We all made commitments and promises to one another to get it done," she said.

Triple planetary crisis

Andersen said it's clear that biodiversity is declining due to unsustainable consumption and production, in addition to biodiversity being linked to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, natural biodiversity loss, as well as pollution and waste.

"Biodiversity is us and how we live and interact with nature, so nature-focused climate actions can bring huge benefits and nature-positive actions," she said.

According to the World Economic Forum analysis, "nature-positive" solutions can create 395 million jobs by 2030.

David Cooper, the acting executive secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said challenges to translating the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreement remain.

"It is going to take a lot of work to achieve the goals and the targets, but we know it's necessary if we are going to leave a livable planet for our children," he said.

"We are very grateful to China for launching the action initiative. This initiative will build on other initiatives and provide a common platform for these actions, increase visibility to the framework and give momentum for its implementation."