November 2022
Each year, the United Nations brings together leaders from almost every country for global climate summits. Creating climate action on a global scale has long been a difficult, complex challenge. Progress, so far, has been slow and hard-earned. But the UN’s yearly Conference of Parties (COP) has helped galvanize global momentum around the goal of reducing carbon emissions, reaching net-zero by 2050, protecting biodiversity, and more. These conferences are an invaluable opportunity for nations to come together, communicate climate targets, and share their progress.
COP15: Protecting Biodiversity This Decade
World leaders will gather for COP15 on biodiversity in Montreal from December 7-19. Climate change and biodiversity, of course, are closely intertwined. It’s crucial that leaders focus on biodiversity challenges, which—if left unaddressed—will exacerbate the climate crisis and trigger further ecological damage.
This year’s COP on biodiversity is expected to be a landmark conference. In 2021, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity released a new draft global framework for managing nature through 2030. COP15 is essentially tasked with finalizing, adopting, and figuring out how to implement the new framework, which will have goals like:
- Effectively conserving at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of ocean, balanced with the rights and priorities of Indigenous and local communities
- Bringing under restoration 3 billion hectares of degraded land and freshwater ecosystems and 3 billion hectares of ocean ecosystems
- Aligning financial flows to achieve biodiversity targets
- Eliminating all illegal and unsustainable harvest, trade, and use of wild species
The UN’s biodiversity goals are ambitious but attainable. At Domini, we’ve been vocal on biodiversity and the critical opportunity that world leaders have to help initiate real progress. Earlier this year, our CEO Carole Laible joined a UN General Assembly event, calling for leaders to prepare for and take seriously the task of implementing systemic solutions for global challenges at COP15 and beyond.