Biodiversity: Council adopts conclusions

Environment ministers today adopted conclusions on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. The conclusions set out the general political framework of the EU’s negotiating position at the Fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Egypt in November 2018.

In the conclusions, the Council acknowledges that good progress has been made towards meeting some parts of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets, however calls for increased efforts to fully achieve these targets.

The Council expresses its deep concern that the natural resource base and ecosystem services that humanity depends upon are at high risk and that most pressures driving biodiversity loss, including habitat loss and change, land degradation, climate change, invasive alien species, terrestrial and marine pollution and the unsustainable use of biodiversity, continue to increase. Therefore, the Council urges the Commission and its Member States to work hard in the next two years to fully implement the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 and the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.

Ministers call for an ambitious strategic plan for biodiversity beyond 2020 which provides an overarching biodiversity framework across the UN and for all stakeholders towards the 2050 vision on biodiversity. This framework should place biodiversity and ecosystem services high on political agendas and strengthen the implementation of the CBD Convention and its Protocols as well as of the other biodiversity related multilateral environmental agreements and relevant SDGs. The Council also stresses the need to convene a high-level biodiversity summit at the level of Heads of State/Heads of Government in 2020 to strengthen the political visibility of biodiversity and its vital contribution to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

They welcome the initiative of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt to host a high level segment in November 2018 to discuss mainstreaming biodiversity into energy and mining, infrastructure, manufacturing, processing and health sectors.

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