Webinar on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF): Outcomes, follow up and way forward
7 March 2023, Barcelona – UfM hosted on 7 March 2023 the webinar on the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF): Outcomes, follow up and way forward”, as a follow-up on the COP15 Biodiversity, which took place in December 2022 in Montreal as shared international roadmap to tackle the ecological crisis and towards a more nature-positive world. The webinar stressed the need to continue pooling technical, human and financial resources; ensuring coordination and converge efforts to reach the 30×30 target, which calls for 30% of the world’s terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, to be in effective protection and management by 2030.
UfM Deputy Secretary General, Almotaz Abadi, emphasized the importance of the Global Biodiversity Framework in the work of the UfM, as a mean to translate commitments into programs and cooperation to better protect our biodiversity, as well as promote nature based solutions. The webinar gathered COP15 negotiators and countries representatives from both shores of the Mediterranean, who presented the COP15 goals and targets and reflected on the implications for the Mediterranean region, both at regional and at national level.
Specifically, Jordan, Morocco and Spain presented the ongoing national processes towards updating their National Biodiversity Frameworks and associated regulatory, economic, financial measures that are being set in place. Stakeholders such as DG RTD, FAO, SPA/RAC-UNEP/MAP, the Mediterranean Biodiversity Consortium, UNDP and EBRD, framed their contribution around initiatives and financing available, based on the partnerships set up with the UfM over the past years within the UfM GreenerMed Agenda.
The reversal of biodiversity loss was also closely associated to the shift towards green, circular economy and change of economic paradigm. Such shift is at the core of the Mediterranean regional cooperation since 2014.
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
In December 2022, after 4 years of negotiation, the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), complemented by decisions on Monitoring, Reporting and Review, Resource Mobilization, Digital Sequence Information and Capacity Building. The agreement was celebrated as a success to guide global action on nature and biodiversity until 2030, aiming at halting biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems while respecting indigenous and local communities’ rights.
Important targets that have been negotiated to reach its mission to reverse and halt biodiversity loss are:
- the 30×30 target
- the restoration of 30 per cent of terrestrial and marine ecosystems;
- the reduction to near zero of the loss of areas of high biodiversity value;
- the reduction of harmful subsidies by at least 500bn USD per year;
- the halving of food waste
- raising reliable international financing for implementation of the GBF.
Taken together, the GBF and the Paris Agreement contain a comprehensive set of commitments, the implementation of which will put nature on a clear path to recovery and bring us closer to a global economy that conserves biodiversity and is based on sustainable use of biodiversity.
