Global strategies to bridge the funding gap on nature should not pin too much hope on private financing, the UN biodiversity chief told Carbon Pulse, cautioning over the use of voluntary biodiversity credits across jurisdictions.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), sounded the alarm over the lack of resources being channelled towards biodiversity conservation and restoration, as the private sector is likely to play a limited role in bridging this gap.

“It is vital for the success of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that businesses and financial institutions realign their investments to be less harmful and more positive for biodiversity,” Cooper told Carbon Pulse in an interview.

“Companies also need to step up those resources in support of conservation, but we shouldn’t be unrealistic in terms of the business case for companies to be invested in pure conservation activities. The private sector will not come and rescue us in terms of providing the main biodiversity finance.”

While the GBF stressed the need to unlock private resources, a range of different measures must be deployed to scale biodiversity financing, including domestic expenditure from the public sector and North-South flows, said Cooper.

The GBF also carved out a role for “innovative schemes” such as biodiversity offsets and credits, though corporate demand in the voluntary markets is yet to pick up on a significant scale, in part due to a lack of education and awareness of the space compared to the carbon markets.

“We have to explore the biodiversity credit space very, very carefully when we see some of the difficulties we’ve had with carbon credits, particularly when they’ve been driven by a voluntary market,” said Cooper.

“There must be a potential for some private sector finance here, but we also need to be cautious in the way we move ahead.”

CREDIT CONCERNS

Notably, Cooper suggested that new initiatives focus on biodiversity schemes within jurisdictions, drawing from frameworks such as the UK’s Biodiversity Net Gain policy, the US wetland mitigation banking programme, and Australia’s Nature Repair Market.

“We may see a scale-up in these initiatives, but they must be well regulated within jurisdictions. Across jurisdictions, it’s more difficult,” he said.

“We need to be looking at biodiversity credits within the context of a mitigation hierarchy, so we’re not licensing the destruction of biodiversity in one place in order to get some funds channelled to another place.”

Through credits, companies could reduce the negative impacts associated with their supply chains, said Cooper, pointing out that businesses should first ramp up efforts in assessing and disclosing their nature-related risks and dependencies.

Although companies have been increasingly committing to adopting disclosure frameworks, such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) recommendations and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard, governments should take action to hasten uptake, Cooper said.

“Some companies are going to report on their impacts voluntarily, but it’d be important to create a level playing field through mandating corporate disclosures,” he said.

REPORTING FLAWS

Meanwhile, Cooper urged governments to set clear targets in their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), the national documents outlining how countries intend to meet biodiversity conservation goals, including having at least 30% of land and sea protected by 2030.

NBSAPs are due to be updated before the COP16 UN biodiversity summit kicks off in Cali, Colombia on Oct. 21, and must be accompanied by separate Biodiversity Finance Plans that identify sources of funding.

Only 11 regions and countries – Austria, China, France, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Spain, Uganda, the African Union, and the EU – have submitted updated NBSAPs to date, but Cooper is confident that most governments will file their plans ahead of the COP16 summit.

“I’m not surprised that we only have this number so far. For NBSAPs to be effective, they have to have ownership across the different government ministries as well as the sectors they represent. And this process takes time,” he said.

“What really matters is that these plans are based on proper consultation, list activities that can actually deliver progress towards biodiversity targets, and include a credible financing plan as well as a robust monitoring framework. And I think this is perhaps where we need to see the biggest improvement from the Aichi targets at the global level.”

Slow progress in achieving the Aichi targets after the CBD conference held in Japan in 2010 has led the plan to be considered a failure, though it laid the foundation for post-2020 talks, with some of the same targets leaking into the GBF.

A recent study by the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre found that nearly half of countries’ policy pledges for nature made in the NBSAPs before 2020 were not supported by evidence of actions taken by governments.

“We’ve had quite a bit of progress at COP15, where we adopted a monitoring framework and a mechanism for planning monitoring review that’s been further elaborated through our subsidiary body meetings this year,” said Cooper.

The latest CBD negotiations, held over May 21-29 in Nairobi, Kenya, saw countries take positive steps on the monitoring framework and agree on an indicator designed to measure their progress on target 8 of the GBF, which requires governments to report on linkages between their national biodiversity and climate policies.

“The framework is quite complete, but we need to see how that’s applied at the national level. Too often, we’ve seen a lot of commitments made which were not followed up,” said Cooper.

ENHANCING PROTECTION

As well, countries should invest in the quality and management of protected areas (PAs) to ensure that national policies have a real impact on biodiversity conservation, he said.

According to a study published in April by US-headquartered non-profit Re:wild, PAs can even have negative impacts if there is poor enforcement and insufficient resourcing, leading to higher rates of resource extraction, poaching, or agricultural expansion.

A separate paper by the Marine Conservation Institute last month estimated that only a third of the largest global marine protected areas are highly protected.

“It’s not just about having an area that is delineated on paper as being protected or conserved. At the moment, many areas described as protected or conserved areas are not so well managed,” said Cooper.

“What’s important is those areas focus on the areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and that they are well managed.”

Furthermore, countries and organisations should obtain the prior informed consent of Indigenous Peoples and local communities before taking action to expand PAs, he added.

“If you apply all of those qualifiers to the target of conserving 30% of land and sea, then probably it’s going to be a challenge to meet that in its entirety, but it’s going to be necessary if we want to have protected areas as an effective mechanism for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss.”

“NOT CONFIDENT YET”

Other GBF targets that are proving challenging to achieve include reducing the impact of invasive alien species, tackling pollution from excess nutrients fertilisers and other waste, and reforming environmentally harmful subsidies by 2025, said Cooper.

“I’m confident that we’re going to see progress, but I’m not confident yet that we’re going to see the scale of transformation that we need to achieve the goals of the GBF.”

“I’d like to see at least a credible pathway towards the target of mobilising $20 billion per year in international financial flows as we get closer to COP16.”

Cooper, who has held the CBD role since Feb. 2023, is set to pass the baton to German diplomat Astrid Schomaker at the end of this month, though he will stay on to support upcoming negotiations until the COP16 summit.

Since 2017, Shomaker has served as director for global sustainable development and for green diplomacy and multilateralism at the European Commission’s Environment Department, leading the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She also headed the European Commission’s divisions for marine and freshwater issues.

By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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