Advancing transformative change in a pivotal moment for global environmental governance - reflections from COP16
With the resumed Biodiversity COP16 concluding in Rome this week this blog by Stephen Woroniecki, Focali representative at COP16 and fellow in the IPBES Transformative Change assessment, takes us through his experience of these milestone events for global environmental governance and shares insights gained and needs ahead.
2024 was a crucial year for global environmental governance as it was a ‘triple COP year’ with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP16, the UN Convention on Combating Desertification’s COP16 in Riyadh and the Framework Convention on Climate Change’s COP29 in Baku. 2024 was also the approval by governments of two new major reports by IPBES on the Nexus and Transformative Change. These events provide a significant moment to pause and take stock of progress and developments in global environmental governance, how they relate to each other, and what it means for people and nature.
For any systemic transformation to take place the interconnections between various environmental problems as well as related societal challenges need to be at the centre of discussions. Addressing the interlinked challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss will require a social-environmental perspective. The Focali – SIANI collaboration aims to contribute to this bridging together with partners, at different levels, supporting dialogue across knowledge, policy and practice communities.
Dialogue Process
Last year Focali-SIANI support to international climate and biodiversity governance arose through our involvement in the multi-stakeholder dialogue process for a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to tackle linked climate and biodiversity challenges. This approach can help centre the social dimensions of biodiversity and climate action, recognising people’s needs, priorities and lived experiences and ensuring marginalised stakeholders are part of environmental decision-making. HRBA provides a lens with which to examine policies and strategies for their social justice, pluralism and transformative change potential and pitfalls.
This Swedbio led dialogue process, titled “inclusive conversations”, began with three stakeholder dialogue workshops to listen to the perspectives of different stakeholder groups, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, researchers, practitioners and state actors (i.e. duty bearers in a rights context). We then collated and analysed the material to build a foundation for the final multi-stakeholder dialogue workshop.
The multi-stakeholder workshop was held in Cali, Colombia just before the COP16 UN biodiversity conference and gathered these different stakeholder groups together for the first time. Participants praised the collaborative spirit of the workshop, and valued the presence of state actors, a key stakeholder group in the negotiations as well as the principal actors of responsibility for upholding rights. Key insights that emerged from the workshop were the multiplicity of meanings and values related to rights frameworks, requiring a pluralistic approach, and the centrality of rights as means to tie together climate change and biodiversity action in different contexts.
We also contributed to a programme of side-events during COP16 itself to help publicise the findings and help spread awareness amongst the key constituencies attending the COP, especially the party delegates – who are so crucial to include as duty-bearers - and negotiators – with their pivotal role in setting policy that can support or undermine rights. Both official side events and several side events held in different pavilions at COP16 continued the discussions started between different stakeholder groups.
A UN press conference about our joint inclusive conversation series was held in a packed room during the opening day of COP16 but beyond the spotlights on the topics let us explore related details in the Global Biodiversity Framework, that Cali aimed to translate to action.
COP16 reflections
The Global Biodiversity Framework is the key governance instrument for biodiversity at the international level, signed in Montreal in 2022 at COP15. The GBF represents a potentially transformative ‘Paris moment’ for biodiversity. Crucially the GBF contains cross-cutting social provisions (known as ‘Section C’), including attention to IPLCs, Gender and Human Rights, as part of a ‘whole of society’ approach.
COP16 was designated as the ‘implementation’ COP, with key negotiations on issues such as finance and monitoring expected. The attendance and expectations were very high, even whilst fewer countries than hoped for had submitted their biodiversity action plans in advance of the conference (the GBF works similarly to the Paris agreement in that global targets are expected to be met through voluntary contributions of countries).
Afterwards, reflecting on the COP16 outcomes and process, negotiators participating in the Focali-SIANI co--organised ‘COP16 Post-Match Analysis' online panel discussion highlighted some significant steps forward, including the new agreement on digital sequencing information (DSI) which will provide a means for benefit sharing from biodiversity conservation. The creation of a Subsidiary Body for Indigenous peoples and local communities to facilitate greater participation in biodiversity decision making was also hailed as milestone in the inclusion of these groups in biodiversity governance.
Negotiators ran out of time before they could reach final agreements on finance, reporting and the global stocktake. Hence, the meeting this week in Rome to conclude these issues.
Aside from the negotiations, the conference was also remarkable for the unprecedented interest it attracted from a wide range of actors. The two weeks of the conference were characterised by a huge number of side events, panel discussions, bilateral meetings and other forms of relationship building. Such energy can help to raise the profile of biodiversity loss, and the ways that it interacts with other issues, in the public attention, helping to make it comparable in terms of awareness as climate change.
Moreover, the Colombian hosts also dedicated a significant amount of effort to ensuring that there was wide offering for the Colombian people and residents of Cali. Hence, there was a two-week festival of nature in downtown Cali which was a showpiece for how to galvanise public support for nature. A second Focali representative at COP16 from Colombia, Jesica López, shared her impressions and take aways from this historic event during the Post Match webinar panel organized to digest the outcomes with key actors that had been involved.
Gaps on the path ahead
Zooming out from the COP16 progress, there seems to have been a limited amount of progress at the 3 COPs, some important wins, but not commensurate with the scale or rate of change needed. There has been very slow progress on weaving the different conventions together. There is also the changing geopolitical situation making for a much more uncertain context for multilateral environmental action. There is still a pressing need to address underlying causes of the intertwined social and ecological crises.
Gaps exist in relation to the Section C considerations in both IPBES and CBD and bridging the two. Social dimensions in biodiversity research, policy and practice need to be continually examined. Social science can help unpack the COP process and progress towards the targets. Using this lens can also help us to unearth the social dynamics at play related policy and science. Policy processes, evaluate their transformative potential and obstacles in the way.
At the recent IPBES 11 Plenary discussion two milestone assessments were formally approved by governances, the Nexus assessment on interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health and the transformative change assessment. These assessments have in the past been especially important in the context of the CBD negotiations, as IPBES assessments are often referred to in the negotiations as well as in decision texts. Together, they provide a framework for future Focali-SIANI collaborations, reiterating the importance of integrated work on food, water, energy, biodiversity and climate change to deliver transformative change. As exemplified by the focus on these intertwined challenges and the IPBES assessments at the Focali annual meeting being held in March.
“There is an urgent need to confront deeper inequalities across political scales, knowledge institutions, and human-nature relationships to ensure the transformative potential of the GBF is reached.”
In conclusion, with only six years to achieve global commitments to prevent further biodiversity loss, progress towards the GBF must be rapid for effective and transformative changes. There is an urgent need to confront deeper inequalities across political scales, knowledge institutions, and human-nature relationships to ensure the transformative potential of the GBF is reached. The implementation of the GBF must be aligned with justice, empowerment, reciprocity and broad-based governance to drive such transformative action. Amidst a triple COP year, and given unprecedented interest from all sectors of society, the IPBES Nexus and Transformative Change assessments provide pathways towards effective, equitable and sustained action for people and nature.
This blog is written by Stephen Woroniecki, Focali representatives at COP16 and fellow in the IPBES Transformative Change assessment. Read more about Stephen and Jesica López the two Focali representatives at COP16 and meet them at the Focali annual meeting March 13.
Read more about the resumed COP16 held in Rome this week.