‘The Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement opens the window of opportunity to secure a healthy future on Earth. This deal does the job on all fronts: it will restore 30% of degraded ecosystems on land and sea by 2030 and will conserve 30% of the world’s marine and terrestrial areas. It reduces risks from pollution, targets subsidies harmful to biodiversity, mobilises funds and brings businesses on board by ensuring they take responsibility. And we must remember that without Montreal there will be no Paris, because we need to protect biodiversity to achieve our climate targets. Today’s deal is an all-round win and I am proud we made it. The real work starts now to turn the words on paper into real action around the world.’ Virginijus Sinkevičius - EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries

Approximately 16 000 participants attended the session and parallel events, representing governments, UN and international organizations, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, non-governmental organizations, academia, and the private sector.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will guide biodiversity policy in the years to come, through four overarching goals and a set of targets to be achieved by 2030. Its implementation is to be facilitated by decisions on resource mobilisation and on capacity building and technical and scientific cooperation aiming to address the finance and capacity gaps between the developed and the developing world. A monitoring framework and a decision on mechanisms for planning, monitoring, reporting and review, are expected to promote and strengthen implementation and compliance. A decision on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources aims to ensure that the CBD framework adapts to technological developments and ensures respect for the Convention’s third objective: fair and equitable benefit-sharing.

Goals and targets for ambitious action by 2030 and 2050

The Kunming-Montreal biodiversity agreement includes key global targets to:

• Restore 30% of degraded ecosystems globally (on land and sea) by 2030
• Conserve and manage 30% of areas (terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine) by 2030
• Stop the extinction of known species, and by 2050 reduce tenfold the extinction risk and rate of all species
• Reduce risk from pesticides by at least 50% by 2030
• Reduce nutrients lost to the environment by at least 50% by 2030
• Reduce pollution risks and negative impacts of pollution from all sources by 2030 to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity and ecosystems
• Reduce the global footprint of consumption by 2030
• Sustainably manage areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and forestry and substantially increase agroecology and other biodiversity-friendly practices
• Tackle climate change through nature-based solutions
• Reduce the rate of introduction and establishment of invasive alien species by at least 50% by 2030
• Secure the safe, legal and sustainable use and trade of wild species by 2030

The deal will also significantly increase finance for biodiversity from all sources (domestic, international – both public and private), mobilising at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030. It also addresses subsidies harmful to biodiversity. A new Fund established under the Global Environment Facility will be open to financing from all sources.

Implementation

• All countries must now implement the framework through domestic and international action.
• Before the next COP in 2024, all countries must prepare updated National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and National Biodiversity Finance Strategies.
• The next COPs will consider whether the cumulative impact of national actions is sufficient to reach the global goals and targets for 2030 and 2050.
• In parallel to policy action, countries and multilateral financial institutions will now work to mobilise financing.

EU initiatives at COP15

The EU formed alliances and initiatives to help deliver the Global Biodiversity Framework on the ground. During the conference, the EU:

• Increased financing for biodiversity from all sources, with a number of Member States and several other countries;
• Joined key initiatives to help partner countries strengthen capacities and knowledge to deliver the Global Biodiversity Framework;
• Signed an agreement with Guyana on sustainable trade of legal timber.

More information:

• Key outcomes of CBD COP 15