By Ellie Zack ‘25: Environmental Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies and Linguistics
At COP29, I followed a series of side events on biodiversity and its connections with climate change. Biodiversity is defined by the United Nations as “the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms, from genes and bacteria to entire ecosystems such as forests or coral reefs.” Biodiversity and its nature-based solutions are the strongest natural defense to climate change. But at the same time, biodiversity can be a risk factor that contributes to worsening climate change. The United Nations treats climate change, biodiversity, and pollution as a “triple planetary crisis,” where each issue is treated as an individual sector, but it is recognized that they are intertwined. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, or CBD, has its own COP every two years to work towards a goal of conserving biodiversity and sharing its benefits fairly.
But why is biodiversity important to the climate crisis? Biodiversity loss, which mostly arises due to land use and food production problems, threatens the health of carbon sinks on land and in the ocean. When carbon sinks start to release carbon instead of store it, changes to the climate accelerate. But climate change can increase biodiversity loss, too, increasing the mortality rate of plant and animal species from higher temperatures and disease rates. A reinforcing feedback loop is created where climate change accelerates the loss of biodiversity, which continues to exacerbate the effects of climate change even more. Because of this, climate change and biodiversity loss should not be treated as two separate problems.
A few weeks before COP29, the CBD COP16 was held in Cali, Columbia. 175 countries were represented this year, but the United States attended only as an observer instead of an official party. The US has never joined the Convention of Biological Diversity. The theme this year was “Peace in Nature,” and the biggest focus of the conference was to review the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was put into place at CBD COP15. One of the key aspects of the new framework is the 30×30 target, where a goal is set to protect biodiversity in 30% of all terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal areas by 2030. This goal is the part of the biodiversity framework that is brought up the most in UNFCCC dialogue. COP16 was a venue for parties to work on their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which are most often compared to the UNFCCC’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Over the past few years, there has been discussion at both COPs about how to include biodiversity into climate change solutions. COP27 had a thematic day for biodiversity, and COP28 had many discussions of how to include plans for the 30×30 target into NDCs.
I found biodiversity events almost every day during the second week of COP29, even when it was not part of the thematic day. Tuesday was unofficially labeled “Synergies Day,” where many of the side events discussed how to find intersectional solutions to climate change. I started my morning in the Capacities Building Hub inside the Blue Zone, where events tend to be more interactive. I went to an event called, “Effectively Delivering on Climate and Nature: NDCs, NAPs, and NSBAPs Synergies.”
The event discussed the need for an increase in coherence between the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and how this can be possible. New Nationally Determined Contributions, parties’ action plans for how they will meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, are due in February 2025. This event called for alignment between the new NDCs and the current National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NPSAPs). At COP29, a new checklist was made that parties can use to assess their plans and set stronger goals. The main takeaway of the event was that there will be greater results in both sectors if these plans work together than if they work alone. Coordination between biodiversity and climate change promotes efficiency in actions and use of resources, ensures that efforts do not undermine each other, and improves collaboration and knowledge planning.
I went to a few biodiversity events at individual pavilions, too. The Arctic Pavilion held an event titled, “Ocean Climate Nexus Adaptation Strategies to Address Climate Change and Migration Approaches for Reducing Biodiversity Loss in the Ocean.” This event was run by members of YOUNGO, the youth constituency. They discussed specific examples of adaptation strategies that can be implemented to help promote biodiversity. These included preservation and restoration of coastal forests, wetlands, and mangroves. They also discussed the education of marine biodiversity, and how bringing training on waste and water management into schools and online courses can minimize the impact of biodiversity loss in local communities.
I also went to an event in the World Wildlife Fund Pavilion, “Two Crises–One Solution–Biodiversity and Climate Nexus in the Caucasus Region.” Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Environment spoke at the event, explaining how Azerbaijan is in the middle of a biodiversity hotspot, with nine of the 11 main climate types found in the country. The event promoted the idea that biodiversity and climate change are sisters, and that nature is necessary to be able to reach climate change goals. It also announced a change in the country’s conservation plan, increasing their funding and efforts to keep biodiversity alive.
“Boost ‘UNEA Synergy Resolution’ – Synergy Building in National Climate and Biodiversity Strategies” was an event held at Japan’s pavilion. This event discussed the same cobenefit approach to finding solutions for both climate change and biodiversity simultaneously, maximizing synergies and minimizing tradeoff. Japan’s synergy planning includes a holistic environmental action plan, a conservation matrix, and their own synergy report that works along the UNFCCC one. The event also included a youth perspective—they said that the strengths of young people are time and passion. The panel included talk of how young people are capable of understanding how everything is connected, and how synergies are able to make big problems easier to understand.
Canada’s pavilion also had an event on Synergies Day called, “Partnerships for Climate, Biodiversity and People: Canadian and Global Perspectives.” Canada was a co-host of CBD COP15, where the new biodiversity framework was created. They are a leader in biodiversity policy, aiming to understand the real costs to livelihoods and health that can come from biodiversity loss. The panel discussed the theory of change framework that is included in the current biodiversity plan—you describe the change that you want over a period of time and plan out what actions it will take to get there. Examples of biodiversity projects talked about in the panel included private sector projects, like planting specific varieties of trees in a local community, and funding for research, like the PATH plan for equitable adaptation. A similar thread was seen throughout the day: problems are joint, so solutions should also be joint.
This same idea was promoted at the World Bank Pavilion. They discussed how most social and environmental justice problems affect the same communities at the same time, so they will not be able to be stopped individually. The event was titled “Leveraging Nature Based Solutions for Resilience Adaptation.” The panel talked about how climate change is a feedback loop and nature can be a solution, and gave specific examples of what these nature-based solutions can look like. They included climate resilience projects like landscape restoration, agroforestry using native species, fire management strategies, and mangrove restoration.
There was not a lot of progress made at COP29 connecting the policies of climate change and biodiversity. The UAE dialogue from COP28 included a line about biodiversity, reaffirming “the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems…in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.” However, the negotiations on the UAE dialogue were pushed to COP30, so it will be interesting to see if this line stays in the dialogue.
Even still, there was a lot of discourse about the interconnectedness of biodiversity and climate change. Biodiversity is often overlooked as a strategy to reduce climate change—the potential for nature-based solutions can be overpowered by talk of new mitigation technology or adaptation plans. But it is now well understood that the solutions of climate change and biodiversity conservation need to work hand-in-hand. I will be curious to see how this conversation gets pulled into side events at COP30 in Brazil, which is going to be located on the edge of the Amazon, one of the world’s largest biodiversity hotspots. As synergy becomes a more common topic of conversation at both COPs, countries will hopefully start to coordinate their NDCs and NAPs with their NBSAPs.