Time for action on biodiversity loss

Posted on Monday, 23 January 2023
SDG 13 Climate Action

The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) ended in Montreal, Canada, on 19 December 2022 with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030 through a global biodiversity framework. The agreement aims to protect 30 per cent of Earth’s lands, oceans, coastal areas and inland waters; to reduce harmful government subsidies by $500 billion annually and to cut food waste in half.  The ‘Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’ aims to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights. The plan contains four goals and 23 targets containing concrete measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30 per cent of the planet and 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030. In addition, it contains proposals to increase finance for developing countries.

The Global Biodiversity Framework

The Global Biodiversity Framework consists of four overarching global goals to protect nature.

GOAL A

  • The integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems are maintained, enhanced, or restored, substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050;
  • Human induced extinction of known threatened species is halted, and, by 2050, extinction rate and risk of all species are reduced tenfold, and the abundance of native wild species is increased to healthy and resilient levels;
  • The genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species, is maintained, safeguarding their adaptive potential.

GOAL B

  • Biodiversity is sustainably used and managed and nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, are valued, maintained and enhanced, with those currently in decline being restored, supporting the achievement of sustainable development, for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050.

GOAL C

  • The monetary and non-monetary benefits from the utilization of genetic resources, and digital sequence information on genetic resources, and of traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, as applicable, are shared fairly and equitably, including, as appropriate with indigenous peoples and local communities, and substantially increased by 2050, while ensuring traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources is appropriately protected, thereby contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, in accordance with internationally agreed access and benefit-sharing instruments.

GOAL D

  • Adequate means of implementation, including financial resources, capacity-building, technical and scientific cooperation, and access to and transfer of technology to fully implement the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework are secured and equitably accessible to all Parties, especially developing countries, in particular the least developed countries and small island developing States, as well as countries with economies in transition, progressively closing the biodiversity finance gap of $700 billion per year, and aligning financial flows with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

The Global Biodiversity Framework also includes 23 targets to achieve by 2030 including:

  • Effective conservation and management of at least 30 per cent of the world’s land, coastal areas and oceans. Currently, 17 percent of land and *8 per cent of marine areas are under protection
  • Restoration of 30 per cent of terrestrial and marine ecosystems
  • Reduce to near zero the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance and high ecological integrity
  • Halving global food waste
  • Phasing out or reforming subsidies that harm biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year, while scaling up positive incentives for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use
  • Mobilizing at least $200 billion per year from public and private sources for biodiversity-related funding
  • Raising international financial flows from developed to developing countries to at least US$ 30 billion per year
  • Requiring transnational companies and financial institutions to monitor, assess, and transparently disclose risks and impacts

A monitoring framework has been developed with a set of indicators to measure progress on the 23 targets to be achieved by 2030.  The framework contains global indicators, national indicators and others.  Ireland should ensure that a system of measuring these indicators becomes part of the 4th National Biodiversity Action Plan, in line with the updates that will be required in this plan to incorporate the goals and targets that Ireland signed up to at COP15.

Finance

Finance played a key and at times fractious role at COP15, with discussions centring on how much money developed countries will send to developing countries to address biodiversity loss. It was requested that the Global Environment Facility set up a Special Trust Fund – the GBF Fund – to support the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The fund would complement existing support and scale up financing to ensure the timely implementation of the GBF with adequate, predictable and timely flow of funds.  Resource mobilisation will prove crucial to the successful implementation of the financial commitments agreed to at COP15.  Targets 13 addresses issues around the fair and equitable sharing of benefits that arise from the utilisation of genetic resources, allocation and accumulation of resources and financing.  Target 19 deals with the challenge of financing, and how to substantially and progressively increase the level of financial resources from all sources, in an effective, timely and easily accessible manner, to implement national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and to mobilise at least $200 billion per annum by 2030.

Ireland

Biodiversity

Climate change is also having an impact on biodiversity in Ireland. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the economic value of our ecosystem services is around €2.6 billion but that the rate of habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity is accelerating across Europe, including in Ireland. Ireland needs to improve its data collection methods when it comes to biodiversity and to monitor the impact of climate change in this context to protect both our natural resources and our economy. Our natural capital and ecosystems should also be assigned value in our national accounting systems.

The decline of nature, biodiversity and insects, and the impacts, are starkly outlined in a series of international reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[1].  The impact on Ireland is clear from reports from the EPA on water quality, air quality, biodiversity and emissions. Government must treat these reports as an impetus to implement a complete shift in policy away from business as usual and towards transition and adaptation.  This requires immediate action and immediate investment. Although initially costly, the returns and dividend we will reap from the investment is significant.  It will put Ireland on the pathway to meet 2030 and 2050 targets. It is clear that the 4th National Biodiversity Action Plan must incorporate the monitoring framework to protect our biodiversity and support progress to meet the targets set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework.  Implementation of the relevant measures and actions to reach the GBF targets will determine whether or not Government values our biodiversity and whether the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on Biodiversity Loss will inform the policy process. 

Harmful environmental subsidies

Ireland continues to allocate substantial resources to harmful fossil fuel subsidies, €2.2 billion in 2020 and €2.8 billion in 2019.  Between 2012 and 2016, €4 billion per annum in taxation was forgone through potentially environmentally damaging subsidies. €2.5 billion went in direct subsidies and preferential tax treatment supporting fossil fuel activities in Ireland and a further €1.6 billion supported other potentially environmentally damaging activities in the Agriculture, Transport and Fisheries sectors.  A study by the ESRI found that budgetary cost of these subsidies was over six times higher than the entire carbon tax revenue of the Government in 2017.  The value of environmental subsidies is substantial.  By ending environmentally damaging tax breaks and investing this money in people, communities and regions that will be most affected by climate adaptation, Government can help to ensure a Just Transition.  It also increases the fiscal space available to government in terms of climate policy and protecting biodiversity.

Food waste 

Ireland faces significant challenges in meeting current waste targets, with food waste across the entire supply chain has been calculated to be over 770,000 tonnes in 2020. The challenge to reduce this amount to the target level of 50% is significant.  Irish households threw away an estimated 241,000 tonnes of food (31% of total) in 2020. This includes food waste collected in kerbside collections, which is equivalent to about 130 kg of food waste per household or 48 kg per person Food waste costs the average Irish household about €60 per month or €700 per year.  That’s an annual national cost of €1.29 billion.

It is clear, in order to make progress on biodiversity, nationally and internationally, immediate implementation of policy is key to ensure the 2030 targets do not fall the way of other environmental targets and are missed by a substantial margin. 

 

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/

https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/