UN-Habitat’s participation at CBD COP16 in Cali, Colombia

UN-Habitat is enthusiastically preparing for its participation, to be held from 21 October to 1 November 2024 in the city of Cali, Colombia.

October 24, 2024

The Conference of Parties (COP) is the ultimate decision-making body of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and it meets biennially. CBD was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and today has 196 signatory countries. Its objectives are ‘the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources’.

What is CBD COP16?

During COP15 in 2022, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, also known as The Biodiversity Plan, was adopted. It aims to ‘catalyze, enable and galvanize urgent and transformative action by Governments, and subnational and local authorities, with the involvement of all of society, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss’. ‘[A]ction- and results-oriented’, it ‘aims to guide and promote, at all levels, the revision, development, updating, and implementation of policies, goals, targets, and national biodiversity strategies and actions plans, and to facilitate the monitoring and review of progress at all levels in a more transparent and responsible manner’. The Biodiversity Plan defines 23 targets to be met by 2030.

The agreements expected to result from COP16 are:

Review of the status of implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
Updates of National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) by countries
Development of the monitoring framework for the Biodiversity Plan updates on resource mobilization
Finalization of a multilateral mechanism on fair and equitable benefit sharing of digital sequence information on genetic resources

For COP16 the host government, Colombia, has selected the theme ‘Peace with Nature’, highlighting the links between human conflict, violence, nature, and territories. The theme also recognizes the agency of indigenous, afro-descendant, and rural agricultural workers as ‘custodians of biodiversity’.

How are urbanization and biodiversity related?

Some of the 23 targets set by the Global Biodiversity Framework are particularly relevant for UN-Habitat’s work, such as Target 1, which aims to plan and manage all areas to reduce biodiversity loss; Target 2, restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030; Target 3, conserve 30% of land, waters and seas, and Target 12, enhance green spaces and urban planning for human well-being and biodiversity.

Biodiversity, in addition to its intrinsic value, offers a series of ecosystem services to cities and territories. These are generally grouped into four categories: provisioning services (e.g. fresh water, food, material and medicinal resources), regulating services (e.g. climate and erosion control, air quality, water cycling, and pollination), support services (e.g. soil formation, nutrient recycling, and photosynthesis) and cultural services (e.g. mental and physical health, recreation and ecotourism, spiritual and religious values and aesthetic values). All these play a fundamental role in regulating temperatures and the availability of water and clean air for cities. Likewise, healthy soil favours food security but also contributes to disaster risk reduction, particularly by reducing landslides, floods and fires.

Cities are not isolated from the landscapes of which they are a part. They must be understood in relation to the functional links with their surrounding territories. The major cause of biodiversity loss is habitat degradation, mainly linked to changes in land use. Though this is usually initially from forest to agricultural land, secondary conversion generally leads to urban uses and infrastructural lock-in. Urban planning can contribute to preventive decision-making that reduced sprawl and avoids further loss of ecosystems in peri-urban areas. Addressing urban-rural linkages can also promote an integrated territorial approach to flows and interdependencies, whether they are contiguous or remote, and improve patterns of production and consumption to reduce their impact on ecosystems.

In addition, actions taken within built-up areas can help improve biological connectivity and mitigate some of the effects caused by the fragmentation of natural habitat. For example, cities can restore ecosystems in degraded areas such as riverbanks. They can also make evidence-based decisions around species selection and distribution to promote pollination and improve connectivity between green patches. Such interventions can also provide human populations with a better quality of life in terms of reduced heat and cleaner air. Public spaces are also a strategic entry point for soil de-impermeabilization, which can reduce flooding.

We are dangerously close to shattering Earth’s natural limits. With CBD COP16 having just begun, none of the targets of the Biodiversity Plan adopted in 2022 are on track for achievement. Target 12 addresses green space in cities. However, while the restoration and creation of natural habitats in built-up areas is critical, it cannot keep up with the pace of destruction, usually at the expanding periphery of metropolitan areas. More promisingly, wherever preservation is prioritized, future loss can be avoided. Targets 1 and 3 address the planning and protection (30% of Earth’s area by 2030).

UN-Habitat recognizes the urgency of taking action to halt biodiversity loss and build more sustainable cities. Through close collaboration with local governments and communities, we have successfully implemented projects that promote the preservation and restoration of natural habitats in peri-urban and urban areas, benefiting both biodiversity and residents. In compliment, the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is raising funds to accelerate the implementation of, inter alia, Targets 1 and 3, particularly around spatial planning at the subnational and site scales and expansion of conservation areas.

How is UN-Habitat’s participating in COP16?

CBD COP16 will be an important advocacy space for UN-Habitat to strengthen its mandate to promote biodiverse cities, which was formalized in 2023 following the resolution HSP/HA.2/Res.4 on biodiverse and resilient cities: mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services into urban and territorial planning, adopted at the Second UN Habitat Assembly. The UN-Habitat delegation will be composed of global and regional staff, including the Andean countries office based in Bogotá, Colombia.

Agenda of sessions and side-events UN-Habitat will host or participate in during COP16.

UN-Habitat Tools

As mandated by the resolution, UN-Habitat has been developing a component of a toolkit to promote biodiverse cities:

Hotspot Spotlight

Co-created with the University of Pennsylvania, this tool geospatially projects the risk of land use change, biodiversity loss, and climate change to 2050 and provides an evidence base for decision making about where and how to develop. Based on open-source data, it uses AI and deep learning algorithms to estimate these probabilities for any metropolitan area at a resolution of 30m2. Its gradated ‘stoplight’ map indicates combined risks of development in a particular area: ‘red’ suggests ecosystem preservation, whereas ‘green’ suggests conversion with less harm to planet and people, and ‘yellow’ suggests caution. The process of development of the tool received important support from the government of Costa Rica, where ground-truthing took place and where an Expert Group Meeting was held in July 2024 to discuss applicability and gather feedbacks, with a particular attention given to the necessity for supra-jurisdictional collaboration mechanisms when it comes to adequately manage ecosystems., such as urban or peri-urban forests, or urban rivers.

Public Space

The Public Space Team has adapted one of its flagship tools, the City-wide public space assessment, and adopted a specific approach to integrate a biodiversity lense. This tool helps local governments evaluate the network, distribution, accessibility, quantity and quality of their public spaces through participatory approaches. With the adaptation to Biodiversity lenses, the tool will also provide information on the public spaces’ ecological richness and biological connectivity. With it, local governments can have information for decision-making related to the arborization strategies to enhance ecological value of these spaces and connectivity strategies to enhance the green grid, including riverbanks and green areas.

Urban-Rural linkages

A thematic report on biodiversity mainstreaming by local and subnational governments was a contribution to CBD COP15. Managing Urban-Rural Linkages for Biodiversity: Integrated Territorial Approach addresses long-distance urban-rural flows of goods and services with “flow-based” as well as territorial governance of urban-rural linkages. It highlights the key role of local and subnational governments in protecting and enhancing biodiversity and in delivering on national and international biodiversity commitments.

BiodiverCities Network

In Latin-America and the Caribbean, UN-Habitat I collaborating with the Latin-America Development Bank (CAF) and the Humboldt Institute on Biological Resources to strengthen activities related to the BiodiverCities Network, which offers member cities opportunities in capacity-building, peer-learning and a particular attention to financing opportunities for project incubation.