Autumn Marsh
This year's Bern III conference saw renewed vigor for preserving and protecting the Earth’s threatened biodiversity. The 2024 Bern III conference spanned January 23-25. The conference ensures that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) is effectively implemented. December 2022 saw the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) with the need to quickly address the decline in biodiversity. The initial 2022 conclusion for the KMGBF was to achieve a 2030 goal of 30% land conservation, a 30% restoration of degraded ecosystems, halving invasive species introduction, and a $500 billion per year reduction in harmful subsidies. These subsidies, as addressed by The World Bank account for trillions of dollars going into things like agriculture and fossil fuels, $1.25 trillion per year to be specific. That’s over one trillion dollars going into subsidizing fossil fuels instead of mitigating the climate crisis.
Compare the aforementioned $1.25 trillion to the $1.5 billion pledged by President Xi Jinping to the Kunming Biodiversity Fund in 2021 with the hopes that it would encourage other stakeholders to contribute to the funding. President Xi Jinping trying to encourage in 2022 and 2023 that there be increased funding to the project. Even if there were stakeholders pledging billions to the fund, 1.25 trillion is 833 times the size of 1.5 billion. It’s hard for organizations concerned about biodiversity to keep up with subsidies that are going against the best interest of the climate without legislation coming into place to support the mitigation efforts.
The Bern III conference is intended to ensure that KMGBF is being implemented. So what does this framework entail? KMGBF has four goals that it’s set to achieve by 2050 and 23 other targets by 2030. The 2030 goals entail a 30% conservation of land, and both marine and inland waters as well as, a 30% restoration of degraded ecosystems. These degraded ecosystems will also be subjected to the conservation effort. KMGBF also wants to see that the introduction of invasive species to ecosystems is halved. This will be crucial to the majority of the four 2050 goals which are dedicated to ecosystem and species health, which include completely halting human-induced and related species extinction. The UNEP’s article on the Nature Crisis highlights just how crucial the reduction of invasive species is for protecting biodiversity. The Nature Crisis report found that humans have introduced thousands of invasive species throughout 49 different countries with those 37,000 invasive species contributing to approximately 60% of extinctions. Another one million species are being threatened actively by these invasive species and their removal and mitigation will be critical for the KMGBF’s goal of conservation and restoration. The Nature Crisis, however, concluded that an even bigger contributor to the loss of biodiversity is humans directly utilizing the land for their benefit, including agriculture. The Nature Crisis claims that in the last 35 years, humans have caused 420 million hectares of forest damage and that agriculture has more than 23,000 species at risk of going extinct.
Bern III is a dedicated conference to see that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is being implemented effectively. There’s the deliberate intention that the stakeholders and all other parties attending the conference can see to it that those they represent do their best to meet the 2030 and 2050 goals to protect biodiversity and ecology.
Citation
1. Bern III conference on cooperation among the biodiversity-related conventions for the implementation of the Kunming-montreal GBF. UNEP. (n.d.). https://www.unep.org/events/conference/bern-iii-conference-cooperation-among-biodiversity-related-conventions
2. Environment, U. (n.d.). Kunming-montreal global biodiversity framework. UNEP. https://www.unep.org/resources/kunming-montreal-global-biodiversity-framework
3. Five drivers of the Nature Crisis. UNEP. (n.d.-c). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/five-drivers-nature-crisis
5. World Bank Group. (2023, June 23). Trillions wasted on subsidies could help address climate change: World Bank Report. World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2023/06/15/trillions-wasted-on-subsidies-could-help-address-climate-change