CBD Alliance
The message in the Global Report is clear: despite some progress, we remain dangerously off track to achieve the goals and targets of the KMGBF. The provision of the means of implementation from developed to developing countries remains significantly below what is required for its full and effective implementation.
Parties must accelerate whole-of-government action, particularly on Targets 14 and 18, including through stronger fiscal, financial and regulatory policies to align public and private activities and fiscal and financial flows with the KMGBF, and eliminate harmful incentives in an equitable way.
Additionally, there is a collective failure to address the other “elephants in the room”. Unless the main structural drivers of biodiversity destruction and impediments to implementation - such as sovereign debt burdens, austerity policies and tax injustices - are addressed, transformative change will not be possible.
We also regret that there is no formal process or dialogues for the Global Review.
In the IPBES recommendation, we welcome stronger recognition that governments have a central role in establishing policy, legal and regulatory frameworks for business and finance. But the text still presents business action as separate from, rather than a product of, effective public policy and regulation. This must be corrected, or we will be unable to deliver the systemic reforms needed to stop biodiversity-destructive activities and align financial systems with biodiversity and human rights.
On synthetic biology, the rapid pace of developments in synthetic biology warrants urgent precautionary oversight and a clear-eyed separation of hype from reality.
We must evaluate how synthetic biology may either undermine, or contribute, to the Convention and KMGBF targets, through horizon-scanning, monitoring and assessment. We call on Parties to establish an AHTEG to develop the appropriate methodologies to do so. This must be complemented by a stocktake that can strengthen the work on synthetic biology, in accordance with Articles 7 and 14 of the Convention.
The Thematic Action Plan must support Parties with the capacity to conduct independent assessments, contributing to sovereign decision-making on appropriate and safe technologies, while not bearing the burden of liability and costs associated with adverse effects and technology failures.