Culture, Heritage, Biodiversity and Climate Change: Spotlight on COP15
You’ve heard about COP27 but what about COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference which runs from 7-19 December in Montreal, Canada?
Tackling the climate crisis requires tackling the biodiversity crisis – and responses to both are improved by taking account of their social and cultural dimensions and through integrated nature-culture solutions.
As delegates from around the world assemble at COP15 to try to agree on a major new set of rules for stemming and reversing nature loss called the “post-2020 global biodiversity framework” (GBF), the Climate Heritage Network is pleased to help its members track the #ClimateHeritage implications of the proceedings via a new online explainer: “Intersections of Culture, Heritage, Climate Change and Biodiversity: A Guide to COP15 and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.”
The issues being debated in Montreal are wide-ranging, including everything from conservation and protected areas, to agriculture and pollution, to climate mitigation and adaptation. The need for an all-of-society effort, the critical role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, intergenerational equity, human rights, and gender responsive action are all on the agenda.
The CHN Guide addresses COP15 agenda items that present key intersections of biodiversity, climate change, culture and heritage. It flags textual issues where the resolution could adversely or positively affect the ability to engage with an issue’s cultural dimensions or promote integrated nature-culture responses.
The CHN hopes that this Guide will help foreground the cultural dimension of biodiversity loss and climate change, and support increased engagement by culture and heritage voices in these two defining issues of the Anthropocene.
A Primer on Culture and Heritage at COP15
The global diversity framework (GBF), sometimes referred to as the “Paris Agreement for Nature,” is expected to be adopted at COP15
What is COP15 and the GBF?
Nearly 20,000 delegates from across the world are arriving in Montreal for the second half of COP15, the much-delayed and much-anticipated UN biodiversity summit, which runs from 7-19 December, where the 196 national governments that are parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will attempt to agree on a new “post-2020 global biodiversity framework” (GBF).
The first part of COP15 was held in October 2021 in Kunming, China and online. The second part was moved to Montreal due to continuing Covid-19 restrictions – although China still holds the presidency of COP15.
The summit comes just two weeks after the conclusion of the UN Climate Summit, COP27, in Egypt, where several new deforestation and agricultural pledges made headlines, plus terms such as “cultural heritage,” “food”, “rivers” and “nature-based solutions” were referenced in the final agreement of a UN climate summit for the first time. The final COP27 decision, however, disappointed some by failing to draw explicit linkages to COP15.
The overarching goal of the GBF is to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The GBF replaces the UN’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets for achieving “living in harmony with nature” by 2050.
The current draft of the GBF, released in June 2022, includes four long-term goals for 2050 as well as 22 targets for action over the decade to 2030. As of last week, the draft still had more than 900 square brackets, indicating items that are still up for discussion and have not yet been agreed between countries.
Key #ClimateHeritage Issues at COP15
• GBF Target 3 (30x30 - conserving at least 30% of the Earth’s land, freshwater & seas by 2030 - To learn more, watch this panel discussion on Culture, Heritage and 30x30 sponsored by FIMI and the CHN.
• Target 10 (Agriculture, including agro-ecological principles & food systems)
• Target 16 (Sustainable consumption choices, where there are efforts to delete references to "cultural and historical contexts” and to diets and food systems).
• Target 21 (Inclusive Processes, incl ensuring access to justice of environmental human rights defenders)
• Target 22 (Gender Inclusive Processes)
• Article 8(j) work plans on "Indigenous Peoples and local communities" and on “Nature and Culture.”
(For full details and these and more issues, consult the CHN COP15 Guide)
An issue card produced by CHN in connection with the 2021 UN Climate Conference, COP26
Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss: Twin Crises with Shared Cultural Dimensions
Culture and heritage are at the heart of the trade-offs and synergies that define the biodiversity-climate nexus
Climate change and biodiversity loss are often described as “interconnected crises,” delivering impacts that compound each other and sharing both root causes and some solutions.
It is also increasingly clear that failures to achieve both climate action and biodiversity targets stem in part from a neglect of the cultural dimensions of these crises and of rights-based, place-based, and people-centred strategies for tackling them, including attention to their direct and indirect root causes.
These critiques highlight the twin necessities – in the biodiversity and climate contexts – of engaging with both the social and cultural elements which have helped set the world on an unsustainable path as well as those the point the way to a viable response. This includes supporting Indigenous People's and local communities' systems of knowledge, use, management, and conservation of biodiversity, including by recognizing their territories, cultures, and rights.
Closely related is the need for approaches that better integrate nature and culture. Malama Honua, a statement that came out of the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress, goes further, arguing that the culture/nature binary prevalent in conservation practice, land use governance and research is itself a symptom of larger processes that have put the earth on an unsustainable path.
The CHN COP15 Guide tries to build upon these trends by identifying key items on the COP15 agenda that intersect with the cultural dimensions of biodiversity loss and climate change or that impact the potential for more integrated nature-culture solutions.