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BirdLife Policy Brief for CBD COP-10, Nagoya

Climate ChangeThis document outlines BirdLife’s main policy messages in relation to climate change for COP-10. BirdLife International urges parties to ensure decisions taken at the COP secure the following outcomes:

1. The post-2010 Biodiversity Strategy targets should include strong components that reduce the drivers of biodiversity loss, build resilience of biodiversity and ecosystems and recognise the contribution of ecosystems and biodiversity to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

2. Clear actions to promote synergies between the CBD and the UNFCCC at national and international levels should be agreed to ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation responses are implemented in an environmentally sound manner.

3. The vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change mitigation, in particular reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, should be recognised and supported.

4. The vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change adaptation should be recognised and supported.

Climate change is an important component of the work of the CBD and will be one of the key topics discussed at CBD COP-10 in Nagoya. Climate change does not have a discrete programme of work but cuts across the Convention, being an important component particularly in the programmes of work on forests, inland waters, marine and coastal biodiversity, dry and sub-humid lands and protected areas. Climate change has received increasing attention in recent years within the CBD with key decisions from CBD COP-8 and -9 including:

• highlighting the importance of integrating biodiversity considerations into all relevant climate change national policies, programmes and plans;

• identifying mutually supportive activities to be conducted by the secretariats of the Rio Conventions, parties and relevant organisations;

• calling for an in-depth review of implementation of the cross-cutting issue on biodiversity and climate change for COP-10;

• establishing the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change.

1. The post-2010 Biodiversity Strategy targets should include strong components that reduce the drivers of biodiversity loss, build resilience of biodiversity and ecosystems and recognise the contribution of ecosystems and biodiversity to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The Strategic Plan includes 20 headline targets for 2020, organised under five strategic goals (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 4.2, Annex, paragraph 12, page 23).

BirdLife proposes the following formulations for climate change specific targets:

Target 5: By 2020, at the latest, net loss and degradation and fragmentation of natural habitats including forests, is halted.

Target 10: By 2020, at the latest, to have minimised the multiple pressures on coral reefs, and other vulnerable ecosystems impacted by climate change or ocean acidification, so as to increase the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Target 15: By 2020, at the latest, ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks has been enhanced, through conservation and restoration, including restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to combating desertification.

2. Clear actions to promote synergies between the CBD and the UNFCCC at national and international levels should be agreed to ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation responses are implemented in an environmentally sound manner.

Biodiversity and ecosystems underpin effective mitigation and adaptation actions through sequestering carbon and through the provision of essential ecosystem services on which people depend. This must be recognised within all decisions and actions taken to address climate change. Ensuring that decisions made within the UNFCCC to address mitigation and adaptation should support, rather than undermine biodiversity conservation, is crucial in addressing the critical issue of climate change across the conventions. Similarly, decisions taken within the CBD should be informed by the work of the UNFCCC. It is believed that enhanced synergies across the three Rio Conventions will lead to improved effectiveness across all conventions at national, regional and global levels, while respecting the independent mandates of each convention. More specifically, better synergies should help the development of an effective REDD+ mechanism and the inclusion of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation within international and national adaptation frameworks.

Specifically:

• The CBD should call for the recognition within international and national climate change frameworks of the role of healthy ecosystems and biodiversity in adaptation and mitigation (through REDD+), and the need to ensure that all climate change mitigation and adaptation measures are environmentally sound.

• COP-10 should send a strong message that promotes synergies between the CBD and the UNFCCC that could be recalled by UNFCCC COP 16/COP 17 in [the Shared Vision part of ] the new climate agreement to emphasise that responses to climate change should be implemented in an environmentally sound manner.

• Progress must be made on building synergies between the Rio Conventions, especially in relation to the Joint Work Programme between the Rio Conventions on Climate Change and Biodiversity as described in the in-depth review of implementation of the cross-cutting issue on biodiversity and climate change (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Biodiversity and Climate Change, page 141) and the adoption of joint activities by Parties (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Biodiversity and Climate Change, page 148; UNEP/CBD/COP/10/22 Proposals on ways and means to achieve co-benefits for biodiversity, combating desertification/land degradation, and climate change; UNEP/CBD/COP/10/23 Synthesis of the consultations on possible joint activities among the Rio Conventions).

3. Recognising and supporting the vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change mitigation, in particular reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation.

BirdLife welcomes the results of the in-depth review of implementation of the cross-cutting issue on biodiversity and climate change (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Biodiversity and Climate Change, page 141). Within this review the link between ecosystems and livelihoods is well made. Parties are urged to follow guidance on ways to conserve, use sustainably and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services while contributing to climate-change mitigation and adaptation.

Healthy, biodiverse forest play a vital role in maintaining and increasing resilience to climate change.

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BirdLife calls for CBD decisions (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Ecosystem-based approaches for mitigation including the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, the conservation of forest carbon stocks, and the sustainable management of forest and forest carbon stocks, page 143; UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Reducing biodiversity impacts of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, including from energy production, page 144) to support strong language on biodiversity and social safeguards within REDD addressing the following:

• Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) should prioritise the conservation of natural tropical forests;

• REDD must include provisions which ensure the conservation of biodiversity because it is the plants and animals in natural forests that help create their carbon density. Biodiversity is not a co-benefit but a core necessity;

• REDD must respect, support and promote the rights of local and indigenous peoples, making links to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other applicable instruments;

• Both the conservation of biodiversity and the impacts on biodiversity must be explicitly considered by REDD activities, rules and modalities;

• REDD must specifically exclude the conversion of natural forests to industrial forests or plantations;

• Definitions of forest and forest types as suggested in the Programme of Work on Forest Biodiversity should be improved as an example of addressing inadequacies to improve biodiversity monitoring components of relevant processes and initiatives such as REDD+, LULUCF and AFOLU (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 6.3, Forest Biodiversity, page 157).

4. Recognising and supporting the vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change adaptation.

Healthy ecosystems play a fundamental role in climate change adaptation and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Managing and protecting the natural environment must be a critical component of any strategy or approach to adapt to climate change and ensure sustainable development.

The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands in Nigeria provide essential ecosystem services such as water for drinking, agriculture,

fisheries and livestock. Local people are restoring these wetlands, which dried out as a result of upstream dams. An

example of mal-adaptation, these dams were originally built to help adapt to drought, but have subsequently disadvantaged

communities downstream.

BirdLife supports the text in the draft COP decision (UNEP/CBD/COP/10/1/Add.2, Item 5.6, Biodiversity and Climate Change, page 141) that:

• Recognises that ecosystems can be managed to limit climate change impacts on biodiversity;

• Recognises that ecosystems can be managed to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change;

• Recognises the value of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation that include sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems;

• Reduces biodiversity impacts of climate change adaptation measures;

• Recognises the need to integrate ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation into relevant strategies, including adaptation strategies and plans, national action plans to combat desertification, national biodiversity strategies and action plans, poverty reduction strategies, disaster risk reduction strategies and sustainable land management strategies.

BirdLife contact in Nagoya: Robert Munroe, Climate Change Officer, BirdLife Internationalrobert.munroe@birdlife.org

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