Mr Secretary General,
We are here in Cali fighting for life on Earth. But our hearts are overflowing with grief for all the lives lost in wars and conflicts. We stand in solidarity with Palestine, and all those impacted. The blatant disregard for international law puts multilateralism at risk - it erodes trust among nations, and this echoes through these halls.
The trillions squandered on wars that also destroy biodiversity is the most grotesque manifestation of political, economic and military power. The unfettered power of the global North, corporations and elites is driving the worst harms to our fragile planet. Fossil fuels, mining and industrial logging spiral us into dangerous tipping points. The same powerful interests then peddle false solutions and techno-fixes, despite existing CBD decisions on geoengineering moratoria. This must stop.
Technology is advancing at breakneck speed. We are ill-equipped to respond to its dangers. We must proactively scan the horizon to monitor the frontiers of new technology, and institute just governance over artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and emerging technologies. We also need the UN ICC to support the CBD to build a trusted and accountable genetic sequence database to prevent biopiracy.
And let’s be clear - we cannot end the biodiversity crisis without addressing the structural inequities rooted in the international financial architecture - including the injustice of debt servitude that drives extractivism.
We must end financial sector impunity and a UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights is key. We need public funding for those who protect biodiversity. We hear little discussion of tax justice or ‘polluter pays’ - policies that could deliver funds. We must urgently redirect financial flows from harmful activities – wars, industrial agriculture and destructive subsidies. Vested interests oppose this change.
Cali aims to be the peoples’ COP – yet we see unprecedented levels of corporate lobbying. Defending profits is not the same as defending rights.
Some UN agencies are promoting climate or trade policies that undermine biodiversity. Others are promoting greenwashing or biodiversity offsets. The official complaint about UNEP’s role in the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) examines these challenges.
The UN system must be a guiding light in dark times. We urge you to use your voice to help us implement the transformative change we need. We must start, right now, on implementing the positive aspects of the GBF and revisit the negative aspects. Robust mechanisms for planning, reporting and review must be fair and achievable for developing countries.
Adequate funding is essential to implement the GBF. $210 billion should flow to developing countries by 2030, a fraction of the $35 trillion spent to bail out the G7’s private banks after the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, developed countries have never met their financing obligations, they oppose a dedicated fund and they threaten to deny developing countries the benefits from their own genetic resources.
We are facing existential crises. But we already have many of the solutions. Small-scale farmers and fisherfolk are eager to feed the world, while nurturing the land, oceans and biodiversity through agroecology. Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities and local communities remain the best guardians of nature. With courage, we must finally make peace with nature, and secure a just peace amongst peoples.
Thank you, Mr Secretary General.