On the penultimate day of COP15, the global biodiversity summit in Montreal, countries adopted a “package” of decisions that includes the “Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity framework” (better known as the GBF), along with an associated GBF monitoring framework and a “GBF Fund” for developing countries.
The process by which this package was adopted was unusual and controversial. The Chinese environment minister, acting as COP15 president, gavelled it through quickly without allowing substantive comments on six individual decisions.
This was clearly the only way to achieve any significant outcome from COP15.
The environment minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo objected to this process because the GBF Fund was established within the Convention’s existing financial mechanism (the Global Environment Facility) rather than as a stand-alone fund. However, the following night she said, in so many words, that her country supports the adoption of “the package”.
The GBF is a significant achievement. Mother Earth was freed from her brackets. The section on “Considerations for implementation” discusses “different value systems” and contains a reference to the “rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth” – an acknowledgement of their importance “for those countries that recognize them.”
READ MORE: Historic framework reached as COP15 concludes
While the GBF is not transformative, it is not quite business as usual. Perhaps most importantly, Target 22 recognizes the rights of Indigenous peoples over their lands, territories, resources, and traditional knowledge. It also calls for full and effective participation in decision-making by “women and girls, children and youth, and persons with disabilities.”
A Global Witness report says that “around the world, three people are killed every week while trying to protect their land, their environment, from extractive forces.” It is therefore significant that Target 22 also calls for “full protection of environmental human rights defenders.”
Of particular value to urban dwellers, Target 12 acknowledges the “benefits from green and blue spaces in urban and densely populated areas.” Before COP15, Montreal mayor Valerie Plante announced plans to take biodiversity-friendly actions to protect pollinators and increase green space in Montreal. The following week, cities around the world — including Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Milan and Paris – pledged similar actions.
Target 3 calls for protection of 30 per cent of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas and inland waters by 2030 (wetlands and peatlands are notable omissions from this list). This “30 by 30” commitment was promoted by environment minister Stephen Guilbeault as the most important COP15 outcome and has received wide media attention.
Unfortunately, however, the GBF essentially allows unfettered development outside protected areas. Target 10 encourages “sustainable intensification” — continued use of harmful means of food, fiber and fuel production. Target 15 does not call on national governments to restrict corporate activities that harm biodiversity. Instead, it places the onus on businesses to disclose their risks and impacts, and on consumers to voluntarily alter their consumption patterns.
While the GBF calls for restoration of 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems by 2030 (Target 2), the GBF monitoring framework says that a means to measure progress in achieving this target “does not exist”. Similarly, no measurable indicator is proposed for “minimizing negative and fostering positive impacts of climate action on biodiversity” in Target 8.
This opens the door to absurd schemes such as clear-cutting biodiversity-rich forests to reduce coal burning, as was just announced in Nova Scotia.
Two other potentially important COP15 decisions – one on biodiversity and climate change, and another on mainstreaming biodiversity — were gutted by Brazil near the end of the meeting. This adds to the problem that the twin biodiversity and climate crises are being addressed ineffectively, in silos. This is being exploited by corporations and governments (globally and nationally) to delay action.
To take a more positive view, the gaps in the GBF monitoring framework could be a blueprint for national action. For example, instead of using an expensive and indirect “pesticide environment concentration” indicator for Target 7, Canada can aim directly for a 50 per cent reduction in overall pesticide use. It can be a global leader in measuring the elimination of “plastic pollution” (also in Target 7). It can directly track which companies are “reporting on disclosures of risks, dependencies and impacts [on] biodiversity” for Target 15. And it can draw upon a long list of potential indicators to be “derived from national reporting” found in Table 1 of Annex II of the GBF monitoring framework.
Despite the claim that the purpose of the GBF is to be a catalyst for “transformative action”, this will not occur without major additional efforts, including national legislation. The GBF can be used to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss only if it, along with its gaps and deficiencies, are addressed by leadership within Canada.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
