Negotiators reached a historic deal at a UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world.

Key outcomes

[A] 30×30 Deal

• Delegates committed to protecting 30% of land and 30% of coastal and marine areas by 2030, fulfilling the deal’s highest-profile goal, known as 30-by-30.
• Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.
• Indigenous and traditional territories will also count toward this goal, as many countries and campaigners pushed for during the talks.
• The deal also aspires to restore 30% of degraded lands and waters throughout the decade, up from an earlier aim of 20%.
• And the world will strive to prevent destroying intact landscapes and areas with a lot of species, bringing those losses “close to zero by 2030”.

[B] Money for nature

• Signatories aim to ensure $200 billion per year is channeled to conservation initiatives, from public and private sources.
• Wealthier countries should contribute at least $20 billion of this every year by 2025, and at least $30 billion a year by 2030.
• This appeared to be the Democratic Republic of Congo’s main source of objection to the package.

[C] Big companies report impacts on biodiversity

• Companies should analyse and report how their operations affect and are affected by biodiversity issues.
• The parties agreed to large companies and financial institutions being subject to “requirements” to make disclosures regarding their operations, supply chains and portfolios.
• This reporting is intended to progressively promote biodiversity, reduce the risks posed to business by the natural world, and encourage sustainable production.

[D] Harmful subsidies

• Countries committed to identify subsidies that deplete biodiversity by 2025, and then eliminate, phase out or reform them.
• They agreed to slash those incentives by at least $500 billion a year by 2030, and increase incentives that are positive for conservation.

[E] Pollution and pesticides

• One of the deal’s more controversial targets sought to reduce the use of pesticides by up to two-thirds.
• But the final language to emerge focuses on the risks associated with pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals instead, pledging to reduce those threats by “at least half”, and instead focusing on other forms of pest management.
• Overall, the Kunming-Montreal agreement will focus on reducing the negative impacts of pollution to levels that are not considered harmful to nature, but the text provides no quantifiable target here.

[F] Monitoring and reporting progress

• All the agreed aims will be supported by processes to monitor progress in the future, in a bid to prevent this agreement meeting the same fate as similar targets that were agreed in Aichi, Japan, in 2010, and never met.
• National action plans will be set and reviewed, following a similar format used for greenhouse gas emissions under U.N.-led efforts to curb climate change.
• Some observers objected to the lack of a deadline for countries to submit these plans.

Back2Basics: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

• The CBD (wef 1993) known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty.
• The convention has three main goals:

1. the conservation of biodiversity
2. the sustainable use of its components
3. the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources

• Its objective is to develop national strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and it is often seen as the key document regarding sustainable development.
• It has two supplementary agreements, the Cartagena Protocol and Nagoya Protocol.

(1) Cartagena Protocol

• It is an international treaty governing the movements of living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology from one country to another.

(2) Nagoya Protocol

• It deals with Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS).

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