The landing zone for COP15

Monday 14 November.

• During COP-27, 16 countries – representing 5 continents – met in Sharm El Sheikh in the margins of COP27 to discuss the 10-Point Plan for Financing Biodiversity and the implementation roadmap.
• The 10 Point Plan – developed by Ecuador, Gabon, the Maldives and the UK – sets a clear pathway for bridging the global biodiversity finance gap. 
• Reaching an agreement on how to finance the protection, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity is key to securing high-ambition outcomes at Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) COP15.2 and UNFCCC COP27 and to driving real change on the ground in the crucial decade ahead. 
• The 10 Point Plan aims to galvanize global political attention at its highest level on the issue of biodiversity finance, complementing the formal CBD negotiations process. The Plan:
  • Emphasizes the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to financing biodiversity, drawing on all sources of finance -domestic, public, multilateral and private, international and domestic;
  • Underscores the particular role of international public finance to support developing countries to build a nature positive economy. 
  • Highlights the importance of ensuring that existing flows of public and private finance are realigned to reduce harm to biodiversity and better support the protection and restoration of biodiversity. 
  • The Plan has been endorsed by 17 countries to date: Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, the EU, France, Gabon, Germany, Luxembourg, Maldives, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, and the UK.
• At the meeting, Ministers and representatives from existing signatories (Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Ecuador, European Commission, France, Gabon, Germany, Maldives, Nicaragua, Norway, Philippines, and the United Kingdom) and others supporting the plan (the Philippines, the United States of America and Uruguay), discussed how to ensure that the vision is translated into action ahead of CBD-COP15.2 in Montreal. Participants identified a number of high-priority areas on which they will focus their collective effort in the coming weeks, thus providing a pathway to unlock finance for biodiversity at scale ahead of the start of negotiations.

Minister Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Canada said “With this 10 Point Plan, you have set a landing zone for COP15.”

Minister Gustavo Manrique, Ministry of Environment, Water, and Ecological Transition, Ecuador said: “Today’s meeting brings hope that governments of developed and developing countries can put differences aside when urgent action is so needed. Protecting biodiversity and reversing its loss is vital. The 10 PP is the clearest collective call and the highest global political vision to raise ambition at CBD COP 15.2”

The Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom, said “The 10 Point Plan provides the only ambitious and credible blueprint for bridging the biodiversity finance gap, commanding the support of developed and developing countries.  Together we can support the agreement of an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework at the biodiversity COP15.2 and save our natural world.”

Minister Lee White, Minister of Water and Forestry, Gabon said: “The Biodiversity COP15.2 in December is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to set the global agenda to resolve the biodiversity crisis.  The keys to success in Montreal will be political will and finance. So we are encouraged that this diverse group of countries has come together at the highest level today to endorse the 10PP as a blueprint for how to secure financing. Now the challenge is to turn this straw man into a framework that works for all nations.”

Her Excellency Aminath Shauna, Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology, Maldives said: “As an extremely biodiversity-dependent large ocean state, the Maldives is optimistic about the 10PP and the key role it would play in ensuring the ambition of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, to work towards a nature positive world where our vulnerability is addressed through nature and climate action.”

Andrew Deutz, Director of Global Policy, Institutions and Conservation Finance at The Nature Conservancy said: “We have a clear roadmap for changing the way the world thinks about financing nature, and for making the global economy nature positive. The plan makes it simple to envision the comprehensive suite of actions to get an ambitious outcome in Montreal, and green the global economy.”