The 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference focused on implementation, reviewing the development of national targets and the alignment of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), celebrating the submission of 119 national targets and 44 NBSAPs as of 1 November 2024. Delegates also adopted modalities for ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs).

These modalities will facilitate implementation of marine conservation and management targets under the GBF and other international agreements, including the UN Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement).

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) summary report of the meeting also highlights a decision on biodiversity and climate change that “provides the framework for enhancing coordination and synergies between international and national efforts to address the biodiversity and climate crises.”

Among the Conference’s successes were also the decision to establish a permanent subsidiary body dedicated to Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and a decision on the role of people of African descent in the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). These, according to ENB, play a vital role in promoting inclusiveness and whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches in GBF implementation.

Delegates also adopted a decision on the operationalization of the multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism from use of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources and established the Cali Fund. “Although it contains non-binding elements and is based on an indicative basis for monetary contributions, the mechanism aims to bridge part of the biodiversity finance gap and reward biodiversity stewards,” ENB notes.

Negotiations on means of implementation, including financial resources, were less successful, according to ENB. Following the introduction of a draft decision on resource mobilization by the President of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in the early hours of Saturday 2 November, a debate ensued, which, as delegates were leaving to catch their flights home, led to a loss of quorum and the subsequent suspension of the meeting. As a result, a number of decisions were not adopted. “A resumed meeting of the COP is expected to convene in the coming months, to adopt at least the budget to ensure the uninterrupted operations of the Secretariat,” ENB writes.

The ENB analysis of the meeting notes that “[w]hile the inability to agree on resource mobilization and the financial mechanism soured the possibility of a celebratory end to this COP, its successes stand as indicators of progress,” providing a range of important implementation tools.

The 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference convened from 21 October to 1 November 2024, in Cali, Colombia. The fifth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI 5) took place prior to the Conference, from 16-18 October, and an opening ceremony was held on 20 October. The UN Biodiversity Conference included concurrent meetings of the governing bodies of the CBD and its Protocols: the 16th meeting of the CBD COP, the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (MOP 11) to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (MOP 5) to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits arising from their Utilization (ABS). [ENB Coverage of 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference]