World Biodiversity Summit 2023, New York - Nature Is Everybody’s Business

Last year, we had the Paris moment for nature in Montreal at the UNCBD COP15. And by now, we all know that we need to work across sectors to foster innovation, investments and policy reform. World Biodiversity Summit brought together a very motivated group of people from various sectors to bridge the gap in global collaboration and to unpack it, action area by action area, to find out what needs to happen next to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework.  

– Dr. Harvey Locke, Vice Chair for Nature Positive, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas ans Y2Y 

Business Action for Nature – A Growing Imperative: The interdependence of business on nature was underscored throughout the sessions of the day, highlighting nature conservation as an emergent priority for the business sector. As articulated by H.E. Razan Al Mubarak, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, the economic implications of biodiversity loss are stark and a nature-positive economy has the potential to create 400 million jobs.

Leading up to COP28, the Climate Champions team is calling to non-state actors to put nature at the heart of climate action by committing to five key principles: 

– H. E. Razan Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28 

Recognising & Financing the Invaluable Value of Nature: The Summit highlighted the need for a shared understanding and common language on biodiversity across government, finance and science sectors for effective collaboration and decision-making. Martin Præstegaard, the CEO of ATP, emphasised biodiversity as a significant risk to the financial sector and stressed the integration of biodiversity into financial disclosure. The need to accelerate information flow on the benefits of financing nature and accurately price proxies, reflecting both climate change and biodiversity, is more critical than ever for advancing nature markets. 

 "If we scale up these investments significantly together, then a successful implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework is within our grasp."

– Alvaro Lario, President of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

 

Bridging Climate & Nature: Prof. Dr. Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, emphasised nature's incredible ability to maintain climate balance by absorbing CO2 as a stress response to warming. Climate change proves that we have disrupted this fragile balance by burning fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Our foremost priority now must be to help nature recover to continue sequestering greenhouse gases. It is as clear as it gets: without healthy biodiversity, we will not achieve our decarbonisation goals.   

 "There is no safe landing for climate without protecting our biodiversity."

– Prof. Johan Rockström, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

 

Accelerating Change Through Incentivising Framework & Policy: The Summit highlighted the urgent need for transparent, robust policies and standardised frameworks as catalysts to incentivise the private sector and expedite our progress in safeguarding biodiversity. Current government efforts have fallen short of creating an enabling environment for businesses alone. In discussing renewable energy, Rasmus Skov, the Head of Global External Affairs and Positioning at Ørsted stressed the imperative of integrating the biodiversity agenda into policy frameworks to facilitate its mainstream adoption.

Shared Responsibility & Benefits for Water Stewardship, Regenerative Forestry & Agriculture: Rethinking land and water management is crucial for environmental and human health and climate regulation affecting every sector. The private sector must adopt a more integrated nature-people-climate-positive approach that incorporates the expertise and knowledge of various stakeholders while providing incentives for all, including indigenous communities and farmers. 

Amplifying Indigenous Insights for a Nature-Positive Future: Inclusion and diversity in voices, especially indigenous knowledge was a cornerstone of our discussions. Indigenous communities hold a reservoir of wisdom on nature cultivated over generations. This inherent knowledge can aid biodiversity preservation, land and water management when integrated with technologies and embedded in modelling methods, business and national plans and more. 

 

• Ørsted’s newly released report Uniting action on climate and biodiversity highlights biodiversity's crucial role in renewable energy expansion and equips policymakers, the energy industry and environmental NGOs with guidelines for a nature-positive energy transition.  
• Capgemini released a set of recommendations in their report Preserving the fabric of life: Why biodiversity loss is as urgent as climate change for the corporate sector on how to tackle biodiversity loss and take nature-positive action. 
• The TNFD calls for businesses to disclose and assess their impacts on nature. In their latest report Recommendations of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures released this week, the TNFD offers practical recommendations for businesses to proactively address their impact on nature. 
• Pollination announcement of their inaugural Nature Finance Focus report. The report highlights a set of risks and opportunities derived from the financial sector and assesses how well-prepared private businesses are to invest in nature. 
• Renewables Grid Initiative is gearing up to introduce a service offering technical support to energy companies seeking to transition to nature-positive and decarbonised practices, to be launched at COP28. 

– María Susana Muhamad González, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Government of Colombia 

On behalf of the World Climate Foundation, we would like to extend a big thank you to everybody involved in World Biodiversity Summit for your valued contribution. 

Continuing this year, we are working towards integrating and solidifying the biodiversity targets into broader climate negotiations, with COP28 in Dubai serving as a pivotal moment in the work to reach climate and biodiversity targets altogether. The key lessons and takeaways of the day will help drive the agenda and focus forward and further the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, towards COP28 this year and COP16 next year. 

– Jan Nielsen, CEO and Founder, World Climate Foundation