Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

Biodiversity is vital as humans rely on healthy ecosystems to survive. The food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe depends on biodiversity. For instance, there would be no oxygen without plants, and without bees to pollinate, there would be no fruit.

However, due to anthropogenic factors, currently biodiversity is under stress. Thus, require conservation.

Challenges

• Threat to marine and terrestrial biodiversity;
• Extinction of threatened species;
• Funding issues to conserve biodiversity;
• Agricultural practices and subsidies threatening biodiversity; and
• Loss of indigenous knowledge to conserve biodiversity.

Kunming Summit

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has clear, measurable goals and targets, to conserve biodiversity.

• Target 3, which aim to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and seas by 2030.
• Target 2, which aim to ensure that at least 30% of land and sea areas are under restoration by 2030.
• Target 4, aims to halt the “human-induced extinction of known threatened species” by 2030.
• Target 3 of the GBF – commonly referred to as “30×30” – has even been likened to the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.
• Target 19 deals with the biodiversity finance to mobilise “at least $200bn per year” by 2030 from “all sources” – domestic, international, public and private.

GEF (Global Environment Facility) to establish a “Special Trust Fund” – called the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBF Fund) – “in 2023, and until 2030” to support biodiversity framework.

• Target 18, states incentives that have a negative impact on biodiversity.
• Aimed to identify – by 2025 – and then “eliminate, phase out or reform incentives, including subsidies” that are harmful for biodiversity.
• Section J of the GBF specifies that countries should produce national biodiversity action plans in alignment with GBF’s goals and targets.
• Indigenous rights appear in section C, which contains overall considerations for the framework, as well as a range of targets.
• Section C, which lays out considerations for the framework to be implemented, acknowledges Indigenous peoples and local communities as “custodians of biodiversity”.
• ‘Digital sequence information’ refers to data derived from or linked to genetic from which the genetic material is originally sourced.
• Target 13 and goal C in the framework are related to the sharing of benefits from DSI.
• Target 7 envisions reducing “overall risk” of pollutants by “at least half” and phase-out of pesticides by 2030.