Finding governing models and funding mechanisms to effectively address the ongoing nature crisis will be the main focus when the Global Environment Facility (GEF) next week holds its four-yearly assembly in Vancouver, Canada.
The group’s 7th Assembly comes just two months after its governing body approved a record $1.4 billion in spending on efforts to combat biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution, and to set up the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, which will be ratified and formally launched on Aug. 24.
Delegates from 185 countries will attend the summit, which comes at the tail end of a summer where a wide variety of countries have suffered wildfires, floods, and droughts, clarifying what’s at stake, according to Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO and chairperson at GEF and Costa Rica’s former environment minister.
“Nature loss and climate change are not worries for the future. They are realities today that will be front-of-mind for every single person as we gather in Canada, where this summer’s wildfires have burned forests covering an area twice the size of my country,” he said in a statement.
“The Seventh GEF Assembly will have a clear theme: the need to work together in new ways, within and across countries, and across sectors, to heal the planet.”
BIG ISSUES
The world’s biggest environmental donor, the GEF will play a central role in many of the processes that have been launched or accelerated in the aftermath of the successful negotiation of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) last year, much of which will be discussed at next week’s Vancouver meeting.
It will host the GBF Fund, which will accept donations from governments, businesses, and philanthropy, potentially with announcements of the first donations when the fund formally launches next week.
The GEF will also be part of the financial structure for the biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) framework – usually referred to as the High Seas Treaty – that was agreed in New York in March.
As well, the organisation is involved in supporting governments in shaping their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs), a crucial piece of work being carried out to translate nation’s Montreal commitments into specific policies. A side event at the assembly led by UNDP aims to review progress made on NBSAPs in which countries could signal their approach to biodiversity credit markets and their expected contribution to Montreal commitments.
Earlier this year, a GEF-led group released a report that backed a key role for biodiversity-positive carbon credits and nature certificates in closing the biodiversity funding gap, while stressing that governments and policymakers must support the development and scaling up of the market.
The organisation was then assigned a central role in work initiated by the UK and France to develop the foundations for a global biodiversity credit market, which will present a final framework at the biodiversity COP16 to be held in late 2024.
At a series of high-level roundtables on Aug. 24 and 25 as well as at more formal meetings, delegates will discuss all these issues as well as big picture ideas on policy, governance, and finance.
“The Assembly will chart a path forward through three dimensions: elevating the contributions of science to a healthier and more biodiverse planet; generating more funding from all sources to address biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution; and ensuring that environmental governance becomes more inclusive and focused on those who have been historically under-represented in this space, including youth, women, and Indigenous Peoples,” the GEF said.
Last year governments pledged a total $5.33 billion to the GEF so it can deliver on its work programmes, up from $4.1 bln in 2018.
The meeting will run during Aug. 22-26.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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