Relaunching the international ambition for biodiversity - A three-dimensional vision for the future of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Biodiversity is an increasingly important issue on the political agenda. Many believe that the process initiated regarding the climate must now be undertaken for biodiversity. Everyone remembers the excitement triggered by the conclusion of COP 21 on climate and the adoption of the Paris Agreement. We now naturally turn our attention towards the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, adopted, like the Climate Convention, at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit), with the hope that within it can be found a similar international dynamic that will give a strong momentum to the actions of States and civil society, providing them with visibility and duration, which can mobilize opinions and above all allow biodiversity to resist political decisions that even today tend to relegate it to the level of a minor issue. Indeed, we are approaching a crucial event in Beijing at the end of 2020, during which the international community will see how the objectives it set itself in 2010 have not been achieved, and will have to find the terms for an agreement that is commensurate with the challenges.

A recent Issue Brief clarifies the challenges that must be faced at this event by focusing on three issues: the regime of objectives and targets; the mechanism of the convention; and other legal initiatives or instruments that can be envisaged and linked with the CBD.

Its key messages are:

• To once again merely postpone current objectives, which were set 10 years ago, to the end of the next decade without achieving them, would be a sign that the Convention on Biological Diversity is powerless.
• Renewing the system of objectives implies the evaluation of what they have brought to biodiversity policy in the countries that have adopted them.
• Giving strength to the future objectives will only be possible through a more precise allocation of responsibilities for each country, and thus a form of individualization of targets.
• The ingredients for the success of the Paris Agreement are analysed here. To draw inspiration for biodiversity from these findings will particularly require the linking of global ambitions with the commitments of states and non-state actors.
• The Convention on Biological Diversity is not the only focus of international action for biodiversity. Other legal instruments could be initiated, for example regarding pesticides, and linked to the CBD that could serve as a “matrix” of international commitments.
• link: https://www.iddri.org/index.php/en/publications-and-events/issue-brief/relaunching-international-ambition-biodiversity