HEADLINE: COP28: NATURE MUST BE PART OF THE CLIMATE AND BIODIVERSITY SOLUTION
DURATION: 05:43
SOURCE: NATURE POSITIVE
RESTRICTIONS: ACCESS ALL PLATFORMS IN PERPETUITY; NO ARCHIVE RESALES
INTRO
As COP28 in Dubai draws to a close, governments, leaders and civil society are talking late into the night to reach meaningful agreements. This has been a Global Stocktake COP, intended to evaluate progress on climate action at the global level. This has also been the year when voices on nature have risen above the sidelines to make it be known that tackling fossil fuel emissions alone is no longer enough. And as the role of nature in supporting our climate goals is increasingly acknowledged, campaigners are calling for the Biodiversity and Climate COPs to be closely aligned.
STORY
Nature is not a substitute for reducing fossil fuel use and associated emissions, it cannot solve the climate crisis alone, but it is an essential complement. It can provide up to one third of the cost-effective climate mitigation needed by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement and this has been acknowledged and highlighted at COP28.
Nature-positive, the global goal to reverse and halt nature loss by 2030, has finally gone mainstream. Announcements at COP28 have included $186.6 million of new financing for nature and climate towards forests, mangroves, and the ocean, 21 countries endorsing the Mangrove Breakthrough to restore and protect 15 million hectares of mangroves and more. And the importance of protecting the rights of Indigenous people and learning from Indigenous traditional conservation practices has been recognised with the establishment of an Indigenous People’s Commission.
The next conference venues have been announced - CO29 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan and COP30 in Brazil. But before that world leaders will make their way to the Convention on Biodiversity, COP16 in Colombia. And as the important role that nature plays in protecting our planet is increasingly understood and supported, the call has come to better align the biodiversity COP and the climate COP. If the climate crisis cannot be solved without nature, and if nature cannot continue to exist in a climate breakdown, the question of their separate decision making frameworks has come to the fore.
As COP comes to a close it’s hoped that this is just the beginning. Nature has found its voice and campaigners now hope that the conversations, pledges and support continues across biodiversity and climate COPs and in the wider climate discourse throughout the year.
SHOTLIST:
1. WS - Dubai Expo 2020, COP28
2. WS - World Leaders walking together at COP28, Dubai
3. King Charles walking at COP28, Dubai
4. World Leaders mingling at COP28, Dubai
5. Prime Minister of India, Narenda Modi, shaking hands and then stands beside Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, COP President of COP28, Dubai
6. WS world leaders at COP28, Dubai
7. CU Isabel Prestes da Fonseca, Brazilian Indigenous leader talks in plenary at COP28 in Dubai
8. WS Isabel Prestes da Fonseca, Brazilian Indigenous leader talks in plenary at COP28 in Dubai
9. CU COP28 flags, Dubai
10. Busy walkway at COP28, Dubai
11. Negotiating room, COP28, Dubai
12. WS negotiating room, COP28, Dubai
13. Negotiator talking, COP28, Dubai
14. Indigenous people from Amazon clapping at COP28, Dubai
15. CU, Indigenous man from Amazon having face painted, COP28, Dubai
16. Indigenous man from Amazon having face painted, COP28, Dubai
17. Tilt up to architectural feature at COP28, Dubai
18. Manuel Pulgar Vidal in conversation outside at COP28 Dubai
19. Busy walkway at COP28, Dubai
20. Handshake and hug in Nature Positive Pavilion, COP28, Dubai
21. Crowded Nature Positive Pavilion, COP28, Dubai
22. Walkway at COP28, Dubai, Indigenous woman
23. Woman laughs and waves sitting outside at COP28, Dubai
24. Smiling and laughing youth delegate, COP28, Dubai
25. CU of pledges on post it notes, COP28, Dubai
26. Indonesian dancers, COP28, Dubai
27. SOT Maria Susanna Muhamad Gonzalez, Minister of Environment, Colombia
“We need to phase out fossil fuels, restore nature and strengthen nature”
SOUNDBITE: MASHUA ELVIS LEYIAN, ENVIRONMENTALIST AND CLIMATE ADVOCATE (ENGLISH)
“This is a Global Stocktake conference, COP28, and what that basically means is we are trying to take stock of where we are at as a globe to ensure that we do not go beyond the 1.5 degrees centigrade or celsius according to the Paris agreement in 2015.”
SOUNDBITE: PROFESSOR TOM CROWTHER, ECOLOGIST ETH-ZURICH (ENGLISH)
The conversation has begun. The conversation is now there. Indigenous people are being recognised. Now it is about leaning into that knowledge and building this environmental movement to reflect the things that we do care about. It’s now just about how much carbon do we capture, it’s about how can we promote biodiversity and human well being and if we achieve those things we will get incredible carbon capture as a by product
SOUNDBITE: CATHY YITONG LI, DEPUTY CHAIR OF CLIMATE CRISIS COMMISSION, IUCN (ENGLISH)
So many civil society actors and progressive parties have been pushing for having nature at the centre of COP and exploring more synergies and building that awareness that nature solutions and climate solutions are not two parallel issues. They've been pushing for so many years and I'm so happy to see that at this COP finally this moment came where people are really serious and people have been putting so much attention to it.
SOUNDBITE: SOY SHARON CHEROP, YOUTH CLIMATE ACTIVIST (ENGLISH
I think how we keep this conversation moving forward away from the COP is to take those networks that we have struck in this space and bring it home to our youth-led and ground grass-root actions because there's a whole life that happens outside of the COP and we reconvene every year to report on what we have been able to achieve. So I think it's a continuous cycle that the COP is just a spot on the long linear process.
SOUNDBITE: MANUEL PULGAR-VIDAL, GLOBAL LEADER, CLIMATE AND ENERGY, WWF
I have a dream. I hope that sometime soon we can have both COPs organized together. It's something that I heard from somebody from WWF, Marco Lamberti, and it was let's try to organize in Brazil at least a back-to-back COP. So COP of Biodiversity and COP of Climate and that could bring both communities together and to start to change some more ideas and to explore some more avenues to bring nature more closer to the climate debate.
SOUNDBITE: MASHUA ELVIS LEYIAN, ENVIRONMENTALIST AND CLIMATE ADVOCATE (ENGLISH)
Yeah, we should put the biodiversity COP and the climate COP together because they go hand in hand. Because when we talk about the climate crisis, it's affecting biodiversity. So we can't have a conversation about biodiversity on its own and have climate on its own. It has to be combined. So I think it will only make sense if we have these dialogues in a combined manner.
SOUNDBITE: PETER ELLIS, NATURAL CLIMATE SOLUTIONS, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY (ENGLISH)
I have to say I'm very excited about the Brazil COP. I think Brazil has its own problems and it has had a hard history around deforestation. But there's also so much hope there with a really vibrant young activist, well-educated, passionate, smart population. Brazil has the best forest monitoring system in the world. We have so much to learn from them. And I cannot wait to see what they do with the COP presidency enforcing in particular the way we get nature into the conversation.
12 December 2023
