The climate and nature crisis defines our times, and it is the most vulnerable who bear the brunt. Over half of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature. Loss of biodiversity poses a serious risk to global food security by undermining the resilience of many agricultural systems to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate change. The Government are committed to ending poverty on a liveable planet.
The UN biodiversity summit—CBD COP16—held in Colombia closed on the morning of Saturday 2 November. The UK Government took a leading role in driving forward key elements of work necessary to mobilise more international finance for nature and deliver on our mission to halt and reverse nature loss. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), and I led the UK delegation.
The conclusion of complex negotiations on digital sequence information (DSI) means that businesses have the option of voluntarily contributing to a new fund—known as the Cali fund—if they use this genetic information from nature. DNA that has been sequenced from the natural world is available online for use in research. This research can be applied to important work across agriculture, conservation, medicine and public health. This fund will then support further use of DSI and the conservation and sustainable use of nature, with a significant proportion flowing to indigenous people and local communities.
Progress was made on several fronts, including the UK launching the biodiversity finance trends dashboard to increase transparency and demonstrate that nature finance flows are increasing. The Government welcomed the launch of the framework for high integrity biodiversity credits markets, developed by the Independent Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB), which was sponsored by the UK and France. Alongside the framework, the IAPB also showcased in Cali a suite of pilot projects as a meaningful way of illustrating the current state of the market and its development prospects.
At the conference, the Secretary of State set out new criteria to meet our “30 by 30” targets, which commit to the protection of 30% of land and ocean by 2030. A newly published update outlined criteria for eligible land in England and laid out next steps to achieve this milestone, which is essential for nature conservation and biodiversity.
The UK was pleased that a new permanent body for indigenous peoples and local communities was created at COP16 to increase their formal decision-making power, given that they live on an estimated 50% of the world’s land. I launched the principles for inclusive, gender-responsive, locally-led biodiversity action, which will help focus and co-ordinate action to strengthen the gender equality and social inclusion aspects of the transformative change required to implement the Kunming- Montreal global biodiversity framework and tackle the biodiversity crisis. The Secretary of State and I made commitments to increase support to the global biodiversity framework fund and to join the legacy landscapes fund.
The UK was, however, disappointed that COP16 concluded before reaching an agreement on international strategies for mobilising nature finance. It is only through our international action and leadership that we tackle the twin threats of climate change and biodiversity loss, which threaten growth, our future prosperity and wellbeing.
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