Deputy environment, forestry and fisheries minister Narend Singh departs Cape Town on Friday to attend the COP16 global biodiversity summit in Colombia.
It’s a long haul across the Atlantic to South America but Singh will have even longer nights ahead of talks with African partners and developed countries, after he lands in Cali on Saturday night.
The UN’s COP16 — under the theme ‘Peace with Nature’ from October 21 to November 1 — aims to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity across the world. Nature protects against extreme weather and natural disasters, like the flooding in Nelson Mandela Bay metro this week, and is vital to the fresh water, clean air and food on which we depend.
Singh hopes meetings with developed countries at COP16 will end in deals to support developing countries with a rich biodiversity. Cabinet has approved South Africa’s national biodiversity targets which have been submitted to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat, the body responsible for COP16.
Destroying nature inflames conflict, hunger and disease.
— António Guterres, UN secretary-general
Singh, who has bilateral and multilateral meetings organised on the sidelines of the plenary next week, said: “We have to mobilise resources to protect our biodiversity for the future. Without adequate resources, financial or human, developing countries have so many other priorities ...
“Not that we want to go there with a begging bowl for Africa from the West or the East, but we want to ensure our biodiversity objectives are met and adhere to international standards. We are in this together.”
Two years ago, 196 countries agreed on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with the overarching goals of conserving biodiversity, using natural resources more sustainably and equitably, and increasing financial support for conservation.
Off target
COP16 is the first chance countries will have to report measured progress on 23 of the targets in the 2022 deal and to work out monitoring mechanisms for implementation.
The Global South will be tracking the financial delivery by wealthy countries for biodiversity. Mobilising at least $20bn a year by 2025, and $30bn a year by 2030, is in the targets.
Urging countries “to convert words into action”, UN secretary-general António Guterres said at the COP16 opening ceremony that destroying nature harms sustainable development, green jobs, GDP and cultural heritage.
“Destroying nature inflames conflict, hunger and disease; fuels poverty, inequality and the climate crisis,” he warned, calling on countries to provide financial support for conservation.
This lacklustre delivery on biodiversity finance is also true for the climate COP’s financial promises. “Billions were committed in the climate COP, but we have not seen much of that money,” noted Singh.
The 30x30x30 headline target of COP15 — to protect 30% of the world’s lands, oceans and freshwater by 2030 — also has a long way to go with only 17.5% of land and 8.4% (2.8% effectively) of marine areas now under protection. Nearly a million species face extinction and about 70% of the world’s ecosystems are degraded, scientists report.
Moreover biodiversity is declining faster inside protected areas than outside because of oil and gas exploration, particularly in the Amazon, Congo basin and Southeast Asia, a study by the Natural History Museum in the UK found.
Museum policy director Emma Woods said: “We urgently need to move beyond the approach of simply designating more protected areas to 30x30 ... this will not automatically result in better outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystems.”
In South Africa, said Singh, the government could “not protect and preserve every part as a lot of pristine land lies on private property”. But the department is working with partners, such as NGOs and landowners, to expand protected areas.
SA is updating its 2015-2025 National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan, he said. “We are working on the national plan but it takes a lot of consultation”.
No to biopiracy
By and large, South Africa agrees with the COP16 draft text around digital sequence information (DSI), said Singh. Reuters explains that DSI refers to the genetic resources extracted from nature and used for commercial gain.
“For years, researchers have been tapping the genetic codes of plants, animals and microbes in search of new compounds that can be used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics or other commercial purposes,” Reuters reported.
At COP16 countries with rich genetic resources will be fighting against “biopiracy” and demanding that companies using this genetic information share the benefits fairly.
Indigenous peoples, widely recognised as the guardians of nature, need to be involved in decision-making and COP16 will be a test of whether parties move beyond words to realise this promise and the role they play.
South Africa will be negotiating with partners, including Sadc countries and broadly in the African bloc, “to get them on board” when it comes to voting on key points of the COP16 text.
Formal negotiations by the parties to the UN Convention on Biodiversity take place behind closed doors in the Blue Zone, while civil society groups including youth and NGOs are meeting in the Green Zone across Cali.
Many activists are drawing attention to the inextricable links between the climate crisis and biodiversity, ahead of the climate COP29. “If we do not address climate change, we can forget about biodiversity,” said Singh.
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