Thought-about the world’s most vital occasion to preserve biodiversity, the summit is happening in Cali, the third largest metropolis of the South American nation, and can host some 15,000 attendees, together with a dozen heads of State, 103 ministers and over 1,000 worldwide journalists.
Aiming to advertise worldwide cooperation, agree on investments to guard ecosystems and strengthen world environmental insurance policies, COP16 takes as its roadmap the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a landmark plan to halt and reverse the lack of biodiversity for 2030, adopted at COP15 in Canada.
What’s ‘biodiversity’?
The UN Conference on Organic Variety (CBD) describes biodiversity as “the variety inside species, between species and of ecosystems, together with vegetation, animals, micro organism, and fungi”. These three work collectively to create life on Earth, in all its complexity.
The range of species retains the worldwide ecosystem in steadiness, offering every thing in nature that we, as people, must survive, together with meals, clear water, drugs and shelter. Biodiversity can also be our strongest pure defence in opposition to climate change. Land and ocean ecosystems act as “carbon sinks”, absorbing greater than half of all carbon emissions.
Delegates at COP16, formally the sixteenth Convention of Events to the UN Biodiversity Conference, will talk about learn how to restore quickly degrading lands and seas in a method that protects the planet and respects the rights of indigenous peoples and native communities.
A key aim might be to completely implement the so-called ‘30 by 30’ Kunming-Montreal pledge to guard 30 per cent of the planet’s lands and inland waters, in addition to of marine and coastal areas, by 2030.
‘Postcard landscapes’ encourage motion
Marking the primary world gathering on the important concern of biodiversity since 2022, when international locations agreed on the historic framework, COP16 will run till 1 November in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca. This space is surrounded by the magical sounds of the jungle, purifying streams, intensely inexperienced mountains and the energy of the Pacific Ocean within the northwest of the nation.
Colombia’s Pacific area is marked by landscapes that might be printed on postcards to commemorate their magnificence. Colombia is taken into account one of the vital biodiverse international locations on this planet with 311 kinds of continental and marine ecosystems per sq. kilometers.
Residence to a couple of thousand species of birds, 4 thousand species of orchids, and with 53 per cent of its territory coated by forests, Colombia’s choice as COP16 host highlights the significance of the area within the world biodiversity agenda and the elemental function it performs within the safety of ecosystems.
Biodiversity Plan
Through the summit’s opening ceremony on Sunday, Secretary-Basic António Guterres urged delegations from some 190 international locations to “make peace with nature” and shore up plans to cease habitat loss, save endangered species, and protect our planet’s valuable ecosystems.
The UN chief’s name got here in a video message to the opening ceremony of the gathering. The Secretary-Basic stated: “the framework is grounded in a transparent fact – for humanity to outlive, nature should flourish…it guarantees to reset relations with Earth and its ecosystems.”
Mr. Guterres underscored that delegations should go away Cali with vital investments within the GBF, its associated funds and commitments to mobilize different sources of private and non-private finance to ship on its objectives in full.
“Now we have a plan to rescue humanity from a degraded Earth,” the Secretary-Basic stated, and added that he appeared ahead to seeing delegates in particular person on the finish of the COP “to listen to how you will have delivered.”
Colombia, ‘epicentre of worldwide local weather motion’
The Minister of Setting in Colombia, and President of COP16, Susana Muhamad, highlighted that “Colombia has develop into the epicentre of worldwide local weather motion, uniting leaders and consultants to deal with the best problem of our period: defending our planet and guarantee a sustainable future”.
“Understanding that if we safeguard all types of life, we are safeguarding ourselves, we erect a precept of peace with nature, which additionally means the seek for peace among the many villages”, she added, whereas the blue flag of the United Nations waved the place the assembly is happening.
Nationwide motion plans
Colombia’s former environmental minister, Manuel Rodríguez Becerra, advised UN Information that one of many important challenges is to make sure that international locations make extra vital progress on their motion plans.
“Solely 20 per cent of nations have introduced these nationwide plans two years [after] COP15, the place this world framework was agreed. We hope that, throughout COP16 in Cali, many international locations will current their nationwide plans or might be very prepared. There may be nonetheless a fallacy that we should acknowledge and that’s the reason it’s so vital that progress is made within the monitoring system to comply with via on reaching the objectives which were set”, he stated.
“In relation to finance, we should start to fill the hole with the present sources, that are 200,000 million {dollars} in comparison with the 700,000 million {dollars} which might be required,” concluded the skilled.
The sixteenth Convention of the Events of the Conference on the Organic Variety of the United Nations is taken into account crucial occasion that has occurred in Colombia within the final 50 years.