Towards a Global Biodiversity Action Agenda
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12669 |
| Author | Oscar Widerberg,Philipp Pattberg,Marcel T. J. Kok |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
Towards a Global Biodiversity Action Agenda
Philipp Pattberg and Oscar Widerberg
Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Marcel T. J. Kok
PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague
Abstract
Non-state and sub-national actors (e.g. cities, regions and companies) are increasingly taking action to address biodiversity
loss. They set up standards and commitments, provide funding, create and disseminate information, and execute projects on
the ground. As part of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
decided to implement the ‘Sharm El-Sheikh to Beijing Action Agenda for Nature and People’. While there is general support
for a voluntary commitment process, the question now is how the Action agenda should look like, what form voluntary com-
mitments for biodiversity should take and if and how the action agenda could become a meaningful pillar in the post-2020
global biodiversity framework. A recent study by the authors reveals the actual depth and breadth of biodiversity governance
beyond the CBD. This contribution argues that lessons learned from the ongoing climate change action agenda should
urgently be taken into account when further developing the biodiversity action agenda.
The world is currently witnessing a large scale degradation
of nature, resulting in unprecedented loss of species and
undermining the natural resource base of humanity. Coun-
tries largely failed to achieve goals they have agreed within
the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to conserve
and sustainably use nature; most recently the ambitions of
the 2020 Aichi Targets (IPBES, 2016; Tittensor et al., 2014). If
the global community wants to halt the loss of biodiversity
and start to restore nature, much broader action beyond
states is needed. Innovative institutional arrangements are
needed to ‘bend the curve’of biodiversity loss (Biermann
et al., 2012; Mace et al., 2018). The post-2020 global biodi-
versity framework that is currently negotiated under the
Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) presents a window
of opportunity for introducing such novel arrangements, for
instance, by creating spaces for non-state and sub-national
actors (e.g. cities, regions, indigenous peoples and local
communities, companies, and civil society organizations) to
show-case and commit to biodiversity actions.
At Convention on Biological Diversity COP-14 in Novem-
jing Action Agenda for Nature and People’was launched
with the explicit aim to catalyse actions from all sectors and
stakeholders in support of biodiversity conservation and its
sustainable use.
1
The Action Agenda for nature and People
has three objectives: (1) raise public awareness about the
urgent need to halt biodiversity loss and to restore biodiver-
sity health; (2) inspire and help implement nature-based
solutions to meet key global challenges; and (3) catalyse
cooperative initiatives across sectors and stakeholders in
support of the global biodiversity goals. An online platform
will be set up to map current global efforts, in order to
assess impact and gaps. While countries shave supported
the Action Agenda and a voluntary commitment process by
non-state actors, it is yet to become clear how an action for
nature and people as part of the post-2020 global biodiver-
sity framework could actually look like.
The Convention on Biological Diversity decision to embark
on an action agenda for biodiversity reflects a broader trend
towards transnational environmental governance and the
inclusion of non-state action in multilateral agreements,
including climate change (Hsu et al., 2018), Sustainable
Development Goals (Kanie and Biermann, 2017) and oceans
(Neumann and Unger, 2019). International institutions across
various issue areas including the environment, economy and
security have been ‘gridlocked’and unable to respond to
complex contemporary challenges (Hale et al., 2013). The
CBD is a case in point where little progress have been made
by the global international community to significantly halt
biodiversity loss. Hale and colleagues (2013) suggest that
‘pathological’international negotiation processes based on
rules and customs developed during the previous century
are unfit for 21st century global problems. Engaging a
broader coalition of partners, including non-state and sub-
national actors, in multilateral agreements could break the
gridlocks by, inter alia, inspiring government to increase
their ambition levels; building new multi-stakeholder coali-
tions; and finding innovative solutions to existing problems.
Against this background, it is of crucial importance to
understand what initiatives and approaches are already out
there and how they perform with regard to halting biodiver-
sity loss. Over the past 30 years, a wide landscape of
transnational biodiversity governance has emerged in paral-
lel to the CBD (see Figure 1). They form a loosely coupled
Global Policy (2019) 10:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12669 ©2019 The Authors. Global Policy published by Durham University and John Wiley &Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 3 . September 2019 385
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