By Meenal Tatpati, Research and Policy Associate, Women4Biodiversity
This article was originally published on 1 November 2024 in the ECO 70 (10) of the CBD Alliance.
COP 16 presented itself as a great opportunity to enhance collective action towards safeguarding biodiversity as well as addressing climate change while tackling false and inhibitive solutions towards the same. It was to consider and adopt conclusions and recommendations provided to COP16 by SBSTTA25. It is worthwhile to note that the entire document presented by SBSTTA to COP 16 was bracketed. However it had some important considerations which highlighted the caution with which the CBD has considered the effects of, as well as the many diverse ‘solutions’ being considered towards adaptation and mitigation of climate change on biological diversity.
SBSTTA acknowledged that:
large-scale intensive bioenergy and monocultural plantations have a negative impact on biodiversity since they replace natural forests and susbistence farmlands, thereby threatening food and water security, local livelihoods, and intensify social conflicts.
It encouraged Parties:
To implement strong social and environmental safeguards including ensuring a human-rights based approach and the full and effective participation of women and girls, children and youth and persons with disabilities, while meeting their obligations under Target 8 and 11.
And other governments and relevant organisation to access, manage and avoid the potential adverse impacts on biodiversity due to economic and sectoral transitions in land use, energy, infrastructure and industrial systems undertaken in response to climate change.
It also requested the Executive Secretary of the CBD to:
open a call for and compile submissions by Parties, observers and other organisations on existing information on carbon and biodiversity credits and offsets and other market-based approaches and their effects on biodiversity, and to make the compilation available to the SBSTTA at a meeting before COP17.
Four contact groups later, the text stands considerably diluted on these major considerations. It has deleted the paragraph highlighting the effects of inten-sive, monoculture plantations on biodiversity, local livelihoods and social conflict. Apart from this, it has also deleted the call made to the Executive Secretary for an open call to collate existing information about the effects of carbon and biodiversity credits and offsets and market-based approaches on biodiversity. It has diluted the language which mentions specific sectoral transtions including land-use change, energy and infrastructure and industrial systems to access their impacts on biodiversity; and has replaced the strong and specific text calling for ‘the need for a human-rights based approach and full and effective participation of women and girls, children and youth and persons with disabilities’ to be considered during implementation of Target 8 and 11 with the often used and heavily diluted phrase “to be consistent with Section C and Target 22 of the KMGBF’.
While these crucial paragraphs have been deleted or diluted, the doucument has continued to maintain caution on adopting nature-based solutions by taking note of the fact that UNEA has recognised that ‘Nature based Solutions’ (NbS) might contribute to climate action but the need to analyse their effects and acknowledge that they do not replace the need for deep reduction in GHG emissions. The CRP also contains reiteration of its own decisions on geo-engineering and acknowledges that climate geoengineering activities, including marine and solar geoengineering activities, could result in serious and irreversible impacts on biodiversity and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples and local communities and the growth of uncontrolled geoengineering field experiments may cause harm to biodiversity and people.
There are several examples all over the world of intensive monoculture plantations, credits and offsets and sectoral changes made as a response to meet Nationally Determined Contributions under the UNFCCC affecting rights of indigenous communities and local people and especially women, as well as harming critically endangered species and biodiverse habitats. It is important that these paragraphs are retained to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The call for the Executive Secretary to compile available information on the effects of carbon and biodiversity credits and offsets would have been crucial to integrate into the CBD process since it has historically complied various studies and submissions on pertinent and relevant issues of importance with respect to biodiversity and climate change ever since this cross-cutting issue was included in the work under the CBD in 2004 through decision VII/15 of the COP. There is a need for strong and clear decision from CBD-COP16 to continue its cautious stand on false solutions and their effects on biodiversity and human rights.
Meenal Tatpati is a researcher with a keen interest in the jurisprudence and governance mechanisms of forests. Her earliest work has been with research and advocacy on the implementation of the Forests Rights Act in India and its relevance in the governance of Protected Areas and the unrealised potential of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) provisions. Some of the highlights of her work have been documenting the life stories of the women of the Dongria Kondh community in Odisha, India and the Raika pastoralist community in Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary. Meenal also coordinated the national-level Community Forest Rights Learning and Advocacy Process from 2014 to 2017 in India. She was part of the global Academic Activist Coproduced Knowledge in Environmental Justice (ACKNOWL-EJ) network of academic scholars engaged in action and collaborative research with local communities on environmental issues, and part of the Rangelands and Pastoralism Territories of Life Group within the ICCA (Indigenous Peoples and Community Conserved Territories and Areas)-Consortium as a research associate. Meenal has an LLB and a Master in Environmental Sciences. Away from work, she is an amateur birdwatcher and photographer and is also learning not to take herself too seriously!
