Policies and People | Why COP27 is important for COP15
Scientific studies have shown that the climate crisis and biodiversity loss are connected. If the world doesn’t have successful outcomes at COP27, it will find it challenging to achieve the aims of the UN Biodiversity Conference (aka CBD COP15) to be held next month in Montreal
The Jabarkhet Nature Reserve (JNR), India’s first private forest reserve, is a wonderland of sorts. Located a couple of kilometres outside the overcrowded holiday town of Mussoorie (Uttarakhand), the forests of Jabarkhet and the surrounding areas have immense ecological value. As one of the few remaining natural forest patches near Mussoorie with connections to the Shivalik Hills and the middle Himalayas, JNR forms an important wildlife corridor and a critical water source for the hill town.
COP15 is as important as COP27 because leaders will be in final negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. (Reuters)
The 100-acre forest belonged to a local businessman, JP Jain, who cared for it deeply. But after his death in 2007, there was no one to care for it since other family members lived elsewhere.
By 2012, overgrazing destroyed the ground vegetation and the hillsides were overgrown with exotic weeds. Grass collection, lopping and cutting of trees had reached alarming proportions. Forest fires were becoming frequent. Poaching had led to a decline in the wildlife population. The hillsides were covered in trash and broken glass left by visitors.
But then in 2013, his son, Vipul Jain, joined hands with Sejal Worah of WWF and started working on a conservation plan for JNR.
“First, we removed nearly 800 kg of trash and removing 20-30 acres of eupatorium to allow grasses and other flora to recover. Second, we worked with the community to reduce pressure on forest resources and control grazing. We set up some waterholes for wildlife and created disturbance-free zones,” Worah told me.
Within the first year of these efforts, the ground vegetation recovered - orchids, flowers, mushrooms, and grasses started proliferating. By the third year, the tree canopies began to get a crown again. Today, JNR is a healthy, diverse and dense forest that represents the middle Himalayan ecosystem.
G20: “Living in harmony with Nature”
I am writing about the JNR story for two reasons that underscore the increasing importance of such green havens in a climate-hit world:
First, the recently concluded G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, urged all parties and countries to realise the 2050 Vision of “Living in harmony with Nature” and promised to step up efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, including through nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches.
And second, the United Nations-led Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt, will weigh heavily on another COP, the UN Biodiversity Conference (December 7-19) to be held in Montreal, a reminder that the climate crisis and biodiversity loss are intrinsically connected.
“The outcome of COP27 will be crucial not just in terms of tackling the climate crisis but to help ensure a future for nature,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said on Thursday. “Scientists have told us in no uncertain terms … that climate change and biodiversity loss are intrinsically connected and that’s why we are looking at the [COP15] framework as, basically, a Paris moment for biodiversity.”
David Cooper, deputy executive secretary of the CBD, said the climate crisis is one of the main drivers of biodiversity decline. “If we don’t have successful outcomes in the climate process, then we cannot hold and reverse biodiversity loss … we depend on the success of the climate conference, but they also depend on the success of the biodiversity conference,” he said.
Why will the world be watching COP15?
Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide and this decline is projected to worsen with business-as-usual scenarios. The UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal will convene governments to agree to a new set of goals for nature over the next decade through the CBD post-2020 framework process. The framework sets out an ambitious plan to implement broad-based action to bring about a transformation in society’s relationship with biodiversity and to ensure that, by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled.
The CBD is a multilateral treaty that was opened for signature at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and was ratified by every UN member of state except the US, to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
COP15 is as important as COP27 because leaders will be in final negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to drive ambitious actions to reverse nature loss through 2030 while better incorporating Indigenous rights and equity. There has already been a delay of two years due to Covid-19.
Biodiversity lossstat
This ambition is important because WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 says that monitored populations of vertebrate species have declined globally by 69%, on average, since the 197.
According to a recent UNEP report, humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably. That means conservation efforts alone have become insufficient to prevent large-scale ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss. Global terrestrial restoration costs – not including costs of restoring marine ecosystems – are estimated to reach at least $200 billion per year by 2030.
The report outlines that every $1 invested in restoration creates up to $30 in economic benefits. “Restoring our ecosystems will help avoid 60% of expected biodiversity extinctions.
UNEP research shows that land-based and marine ecosystems play a vital role in regulating the climate. They currently absorb half of the human-made carbon emissions, with the ocean and the world’s forests, mangrove and peat bogs acting as natural carbon sinks.
Therefore, without protecting and restoring our ecosystems such as the Jabarkhet Nature Reserve, we have no chance of achieving the Paris goals, getting to the 1.5C target or buffering the impacts of an already disrupted climate.
For both COP27 and COP15 to be considered successful, countries need to move from promises to actions, and at COP15, adopt an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework matched by the financial and technical resources needed to achieve its targets.
This is a vital step in the battle to tackle the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. “Our health, food, economies, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions all depend on nature,” says Mirey Atallah, head of UNEP Nature for Climate branch.
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