UN Biodiversity COP16

Two years ago, COP15 adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). This landmark agreement aims to protect and restore nature, including critical targets to prevent an irreversible collapse of ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.

21 October to 1 November
Cali, Colombia

Banner at Montreal’s l’Anneau as COP15 Begins. © Toma Iczkovits / Greenpeace

World leaders have a choice to make: protecting biodiversity or letting nature collapse

In every corner of the planet, more people are displaced from their homes, suffer from disasters and food shortages, lack clean air and water, and suffer the injustices and upheavals of our biodiversity and climate crises. At this year’s UN Biodiversity COP16, our political leaders must demonstrate their stated commitments to protect biodiversity and humanity aren’t merely pretty words. 

We need well-connected networks of protected areas. We need governments to stop enabling the industries that threaten the very pillars of our survival. And we need Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to be able to steward their land with liberation, self-determination, and direct access to finance. 

If humanity raises a deafening call across the world, our leaders cannot dare ignore us. Are we going to help Earth heal herself and sustain us all? Or are we going to allow the last drop of inflated profits to be squeezed until nature collapses?

Greenpeace demands for UN Biodiversity COP16: 

  1. Implementation of the commitment – including new finance pledges – from rich countries to provide $20 billion USD by 2025, and every year after, increasing to $30 billion USD by 2030, with direct access to funding for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities;
  2. The UN Biodiversity COP16 decision should mandate action on climate-biodiversity synergies at international and national levels, between parties’ nationally-based commitments to biodiversity and climate action, with a promotion of ecosystem integrity as a key measure; 
  3. Parties must advance the ambition and implementation of NBSAPs (National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans) to implement the KMGBF agreed at COP15;
  4. Parties must advance the application of Marine Protected Areas as a tool to implement 30×30 – the goal to project 30% of land and sea by 2030 with proper recognition and respect for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.