Navigating the Rio Conventions: What’s at Stake for Nature from Cali to Baku and Beyond?

It’s November, 2024. It’s been 388 months since world leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and agreed to work together to ensure that land, climate, and biodiversity benefit from a joint approach to restore balance to our planet. Much changed since then, some for the better, but the challenge feels more pressing than ever. Environmental stresses, from hurricanes and flash floods to extreme heat and drought, act as barriers disrupting the stream of global forums that blocked the calendars of the same world leaders from October to December as the three Rio Conventions meet to discuss hurdles overcome and rapids ahead.

We find ourselves now one week after Cali, the chosen home for the 2024 UNCBD COP, one week to Baku, host of the UNFCCC COP, and one month to Saudi Arabia, site of the UNCCD COP; and the journey ahead seems ever so long. But even as you, navigators of the Rio Conventions, might be feeling a bit out of breath, here are a few reasons to just keep swimming.

Cali: the ‘nature’ COP

As obvious for this audience as this might sound, the greatest achievement of the first Rio Convention COP of the year was that it formally made the case that nature is a crucial ally in tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. Both can no longer be treated as independent issues, as evidenced by the agreed text signed by Parties.?

Even though global financing efforts are still falling way behind, COP16 also achieved significant milestones regarding shifting money flows, including an additional $163 million pledged by seven countries and Quebec to the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, raising its total to approximately $396 million. Slow but positive steps were made towards the 30×30 target, with an agreement on the process for identifying marine protected areas . Important strides were taken in aligning climate and biodiversity policies and funding, and there was a move to increase the use of nature-based solutions. Additionally, a new subsidiary body was established to include local and traditional communities and Indigenous Peoples in future biodiversity talks, recognizing their vital role in protecting nature.?

However, COP16 negotiations were suspended before the summit’s end without adopting a final strategy to scale up finance for biodiversity .?

This leaves a significant gap in funding for those who need it most, placing the next two years as a pivotal moment for financing the nature, food, and much-needed land transition. A fundamental realignment of the financial system is urgent to meet our climate and nature goals.

A new analysis unveiled by Nature4Climate last week showed that only one-third of nature policies (33%) published since the Paris Agreement have allocated budgets , and less than two in ten (19%) of policies have specific references to Indigenous People. These populations manage 50% of the world’s land but receive less than 1% of climate funding . The GEF Global Biodiversity Framework Fund recommends that at least 20% of public climate finance for nature-based projects should be directed to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Baku: ‘the finance COP’

Cue climate change – the behemoth making all the targets in the three conventions harder to hit. The Climate Conference in Azerbaijan, starting this Monday (11th), can’t fail. Dubbed the ‘finance COP,’ COP29 has the mission to unlock critical funding, and ambitious policy action is essential to limit global warming from reaching its tipping point – and with that, preserving biodiversity and allowing nature to recover. The maxim of all conventions also holds here: protecting, managing, and restoring natural ecosystems are key.?

Baku marks the first time Parties are meeting after the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake, which included reference to the Global Biodiversity Framework and the call to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 . Only a few months separate the meetings in Baku from the deadlines for governments to submit more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (due February 2025), stressing the need for clear financing and implementation targets that are synergetic across the three Conventions.

The top priority at this ‘finance COP’ is establishing a new global goal for climate finance to replace the previous $100 billion target with a new goal of US$1 trillion per year. Significant disagreements are expected, but it is crucial that the new goal aligns with the Paris Agreement and explicitly supports nature as a key ally in combating climate change.

This is why the Nature4Climate Coalition is calling on leaders in Baku to urgently:

• Work to triple finance for nature by 2030 to meet climate and biodiversity goals.
• Create ambitious and investable Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to mobilize private sector capital into nature-based solutions.
• Harmonize and align plans, policies, and budgets across the Rio Conventions ahead of COP30 to ensure cohesive action.

COP29’s Seven Asks

1. The New Collective Quantified Goal for climate finance surpasses US$1 trillion* per year. Currently, nature-based solutions receive only a third of the necessary funding to achieve global climate and biodiversity goals by 2030 . Public and private finance for nature-based solutions (not limited to climate finance) must also triple by 2030 , with public funding playing an important role in unlocking private finance flows. Donor countries need to include a target for funding NbS as part of any wider climate finance package.

2. Ambitious and investable Nationally Determined Contributions to mobilize private sector capital into nature-based solutions. Currently for every US$4 of public funding for NbS, we only see US$1 of private finance . NDCs should include economy-wide targets that are 1.5 degrees C-aligned, fully integrate nature’s role in mitigation and adaptation pathways, set a just and inclusive path to net zero, and are integrated seamlessly with national biodiversity strategies and action plans.?

3. Plans, policies and budgets are aligned and harmonized across the Rio Conventions ahead of COP30. Especially for nature-based solutions and their inclusion across national plans (NDCs, NAPs, NBSAPS, LT-LEDs and LDNs).

4. Global Goal for Adaptation: National Adaptation Plans or adaptation components of NDCs must include nature-based solutions as a cost-effective way to deliver adaptation and resilience for people and nature.?

5. The finalized Article 6 must provide a strong framework for boosting the voluntary carbon market and promote high-integrity NbS for inclusion in carbon markets. Parties must work to harmonize Article 6 policies to enable consistency across countries and standards and cooperate on the implementation of high-integrity jurisdictional scale and nested NbS projects to protect and restore ecosystems at landscape scale, in alignment with 30×30 commitments.

6. Global commitment to end deforestation by 2030 must be upheld with interim milestones. This means public sector reforms to environmentally harmful subsidy flows and that the private sector redirects finance flows away from activities that are driving unsustainable conversion, towards nature-positive solutions.

7. Direct finance for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities is delivered locally so that communities have access to funding to enable their leadership in protecting and restoring nature and delivering the transition to a nature-positive and climate-resilient local economy. At least 20% of all public climate finance for nature-based projects and investments should be directed towards IPs and LCs.

Riyadh: the ‘restoration’ COP

The last of the Triple COPs is also not short of challenges, as it addresses land degradation neutrality targets that avoid further destruction of ecosystems and restore what can be restored. Nature-based solutions, again, come to the rescue. On the main stage, the UNCCD will also be discussing seven crucial points, including how to scale nature-positive food production. Parties should focus on NbS with strong safeguards for nature and people, ensuring that inclusive, rights-based methods support the quantitative goals of the UN Decade on Restoration. More to come on that soon.

A bridge to Belém

The creation of the Rio Conventions represented a milestone for joint action on nature and climate, but it is what happens now that will decide what the future looks like.? In just over 11 months, the spotlight shines once more over Brazil, with a ‘forest COP’ marking the midpoint in the so-called ‘decade of delivery’. Success in Belém relies on the success of the triple-COP season. And it comes with policies, programs, and much-needed finance to jointly build on the linkages between climate and nature.

READ MORE:

• What the Heck is REDD+ Anyway? Demystifying the Climate Movement’s Most Infamous Acronym
• Real economy and Indigenous leaders call on Colombia and Brazil to drive a ‘year of united action on climate, nature and food’
• Policy Tracker 2024: Only 33% of nature-related policies published since the Paris Agreement have allocated budgets
• Nature tech market nears $2 billion: A crucial intersection for private sector and policymakers at COP16
• The clock is ticking: finance sector deforestation action must now go mainstream