Building Synergies Between Climate & Biodiversity Governance: A Primer for COP28

Abstract

This primer, prepared for the UN Resident Coordinator Office in the United Arab Emirates, provides an introduction to the ways in which the challenges of climate change and biodiversity interact and the potential for international policy processes to create joined up responses. Its aim is to provide a reference and further resources for those interested in considering how this endeavour can be strengthened through the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to be held in the UAE in November 2023.

It provides an overview of the interaction between climate change and biodiversity loss and the emergence of nature-based solutions as a potential response (Section 1) and the history and processes of the Convention on Biodiversity (Section 2), setting out its key features and the major developments that took place in the run up to the Global Biodiversity Agreement reached at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Montreal, December 2022 as well as the core goals and targets agreed. It then considers how climate change and biodiversity policy and action are being aligned both through the formal processes of the UNFCCC and the CBD as well as through the growing momentum of initiatives developed by non-state actors and subnational governments.

The primer concludes with some of the key issues emerging at the interface of climate and biodiversity policy, identifying ten areas where concrete progress could be made through COP28 to generate more transformative action for both agendas.