Debate: COP to the Convention on Biological Diversity
Date: WEDNESDAY, 15 JANUARY 2020
Speaker: Virginijus Sinkevičius
Language: EN

The European Commission has taken it seriously, and one of its first decisions has been to launch the European Green Deal, the new agenda for sustainable growth in the European Union, tackling the most serious climate and environmental challenges of our times. This Commission wants the European Union to lead on both climate neutrality and the road to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversit (CBD) in Kunming in October 2020, where the world is to agree on the post—2020 global biodiversity framework.  I welcome the fact that the European Parliament fully supports this ambition. For the European Union, it means leading by example and therefore developing our own European commitments. The European Union Biodiversity Strategy 2030, which we will adopt by March 2020, will include proposals for such EU commitments and will set out our ambition for Kunming, including on global targets. Preparations for this strategy are currently going on at full speed within the Commission, and the resolution which you will adopt tomorrow will be an important input and inspiration for our own reflections and upcoming decisions. We failed twice to achieve our past ten-year biodiversity targets; we cannot allow ourselves to fail again.  Science is perfectly clear that we need a holistic approach for transformative change to address the climate and environment emergency. This should be the spirit for our preparations for CBD COP15, as well as for our work under the European Green Deal. As regards the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, we fully support the European Parliament’s demand for a stronger implementation mechanism and strengthen tools for accountability. We need a systemic and regular cycle for reviewing implementation of the committed actions and progress in reducing the pressures on biodiversity. We should agree on one or a small number of clear overarching long-term goals, similar to the 1.5-degree objective for climate change, in order to maintain political support through the period. We should also kick-start the cycle immediately. Parties should respond to the global framework by 2021, allowing a stocktaking of actions and commitments at COP16 in 2022, at least for the most important issues.  Finally, the monitoring and indicator framework should include headline indicators that are common across parties and hence allow an assessment of the national contributions to achieving the global targets. A stronger implementation and review mechanism will boost work under many environmental agreements. Let me highlight, in this context, the synergies with our important work on international ocean governance, and in particular with our ongoing negotiations on a new international treaty under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea to protect marine biodiversity in the high seas.  It is essential to ensure the means of implementation. The European Union and its Member States collectively lived up to the international commitment to double international biodiversity financing to developing countries. We need financial flows from all sources to benefit nature and biodiversity more, including by mobilising domestic resources. Let me stress three further important aspects in this context. First, the world still spends much more on subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity than it spends on pro-biodiversity action. We need much more progress on phasing out the subsidies and reshaping them to ensure that they are compatible and supportive to biodiversity conservation. Secondly, restoration of ecosystems is typically more expensive than conservation. The quicker we protect the remaining valuable nature and we address the drivers of biodiversity loss, the less we will need to restore, if possible, and the cheaper it will be.  Finally, we need to massively scale-up investments in climate—resilient, nature-based solutions which multiply benefits for biodiversity, climate—change mitigation and adaptation, food security, and finally, of course, health. For the European Union, leading by example means that we should make strong commitments to better protect and climate-proof the biodiversity—rich areas, to restore degraded ecosystems in nature across rural and urban landscapes, to sustainably use and manage our agricultural, forest and ocean resources, and to integrate biodiversity across policies and sectors, including in our outermost regions and territories.  We need to make sure that we deliver on our commitments, this time by creating the adequate enabling environment, from full implementation and enforcement of the EU’s nature legislation to potentially developing new legislation for restoring nature, mainstreaming biodiversity and providing adequate financing. The next multiannual financial framework will be crucial in this regard. We need to guarantee that adequate resources are provided for the protection, restoration and sustainable use of ecosystems through the core EU funding instruments, such as the common agricultural policy, cohesion and regional funds, Horizon Europe, the external action financial instrument and LIFE. We need to ensure that such funding leverages private funding through investEU.  We need to ensure a just transition where the necessary transformational change do not leave anyone behind. This means we have to support, for example, our farmers, forest managers and fishermen and women along this transition. We also need to avoid exporting the damage of biodiversity outside the European Union by consuming unsustainably produced and traded products. This is why the future EU biodiversity strategy will need to address sustainable consumption and production, a reduction of the EU’s ecological footprint and the integration of biodiversity into our trade policy.  We also need to engage much better with our international partners and various stakeholders. For example, we need to work with businesses and financial actors with the tools to account for their biodiversity dependency and impacts, so that they can take the right measures to support and contribute to biodiversity.  The window of opportunity to achieve our global biodiversity vision to live in harmony with nature is narrowing fast, and the next years will be crucial. Knowing the time it takes to get to implementation, this Commission is very aware of its responsibility during its five-year mandate. You can count on our full commitment to work hard and achieve our common objective.