Making COP 30 a Turning Point for Synergistic Climate-Nature Action

A high-level side event during the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 30) highlighted the growing political momentum behind synergistic implementation of the Rio Conventions. It marked the launch of a white paper synthesizing insights from a global stakeholder dialogue series on climate-nature-land synergies.

Moderated by international broadcaster Katie Gallus, the session gathered the leaders of the UNFCCC, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) alongside civil society representatives to reflect on practical pathways for aligning planning, reporting, and financing across the Conventions.

Speakers emphasized that despite decades of discussion, implementation of the Rio Conventions often remains fragmented, creating inefficiencies and missed opportunities for transformative impact. With COP 30 hosting important negotiations on cooperation with other international organizations, panelists underscored the unique opportunity for Belém to become a turning point for integrated action that unlocks climate, biodiversity, and land benefits together.

Eva Kracht, Director General for European and International Policy, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), Germany, opened the session. She highlighted the importance of the intersection of the Rio Conventions and how they are effective in addressing both mitigation and adaptation. She emphasized the long-standing efforts Germany has made to incorporate nature-based solutions (NbS) into both international climate initiatives and domestic programming, ranging from peatland and floodplain restoration to urban resilience infrastructure, demonstrating clear intersections across the climate, biodiversity, and land agendas.

She underscored the value of the global dialogue series organized with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which brought together diverse stakeholders to identify frameworks and incentives for more coherent action. Looking ahead, she urged countries to make COP 30 a genuine turning point for integrated climate-nature implementation.

Mirey Atallah, Director, Adaptation and Resilience Branch, UNEP, presented the newly launched White Paper, explaining that it was built through a series of focused dialogues with governments, scientists, civil society, and implementing agencies. She highlighted three key themes emerging from consultations:

the need for integrated planning that aligns national policies across ministries;
the importance of incentives for collaboration, noting that “working in silos is often easier” because coordination requires time, budget, and political capital; and
the central role of financing and coherent monitoring systems to support synergistic implementation.

Atallah stressed that planning, finance, and reporting must be mutually reinforcing, concluding that “it is always better to talk together than to act apart.”

In the panel discussion that followed, Hambardzum Matevosyan, Minister of Environment, CBD COP 17 Presidency, Armenia, emphasized that the crises addressed by the Rio Conventions – climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation – are inseparable and require joint solutions. He highlighted that the Global Review under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) will be a centerpiece of the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 17), noting its relevance for climate and land agendas.

Matevosyan noted that a persistent challenge is the duplication of decisions across the Conventions, which leads to conflicting guidance and confusion at national level. He said Armenia is addressing this by integrating biodiversity finance into climate and land strategies, ensuring that each data point is “collected once and used many times.” Matevosyan outlined priority areas for strengthening synergies, including integrated national reporting, resource mobilization, and inclusive decision making that centers Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, and local communities.

Batbaatar Bat, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, UNCCD COP 17 Presidency, Mongolia, reflected on the White Paper’s relevance for strengthening linkages across the Rio Conventions, stressing that achieving shared goals requires coherent national systems. He noted that Mongolia’s recent assessment of its nationally determined contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plan (NAP), and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) shows strong progress but also highlights opportunities to improve cross-sectoral strategy.

Emphasizing Mongolia’s cultural ethos of living in balance with nature, he stressed that land and water form the foundation for thriving biodiversity. He announced that Mongolia will launch three global initiatives at UNCCD COP 17: a “Rangeland Flagship” initiative, a water-land nexus initiative, and a nature-based solutions for sustainable infrastructure initiative. These, he said, will strengthen the land-biodiversity-climate nexus and support integration into national development plans.

Irene Vélez Torres, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Colombia, underscored the historic significance of the CBD COP 16 decision on climate-biodiversity integration, calling it a pivotal step toward operationalizing synergies across multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). To translate high-level commitments into tangible outcomes, she said COP 30 must deliver a framework that embeds synergies into political signals. She proposed establishing an expert group to guide implementation across planning, reporting, and monitoring. The White Paper is a critical contribution, she noted, and its recommendations on finance, planning coherence, and monitoring are essential pillars for action. Colombia, she affirmed, remains committed to aligning parallel efforts for shared outcomes that secure nature, food security, and community well-being.

Melanie Coath, Climate Change Principal, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), UK, and a member of the expert group contributing to the dialogues, emphasized that while the importance of synergies is widely recognized, implementation has not proceeded at the speed required. The White Paper, she said, offers a realistic overview of barriers and actionable solutions. She noted that the UNFCCC has historically lacked a dedicated space to discuss synergies, causing momentum to stall. With COP 30 reopening this space, she described the moment as “an exciting opportunity” to finally align climate-nature-people agendas. She highlighted the Presidency consultations and ongoing negotiations as promising signals for delivering robust outcomes that accelerate integrated implementation.

Carina Pimenta, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Brazil, spoke about the potential of the bioeconomy to serve as a connective thread across the Rio Conventions. Drawing on Brazil’s experience, she emphasized that sustainable use of biodiversity is central to securing both livelihoods and ecological integrity, particularly in the Amazon. She noted that countries from the Global South bring unique perspectives linking local economies, territorial rights, and ecological stewardship, underscoring that just transitions must ensure communities are not merely beneficiaries but drivers of the solutions. Pimenta highlighted that COP 30’s Action Agenda and Brazil’s long-standing engagement on circular economies and bioeconomies provide fertile ground for advancing integrated approaches that unite biodiversity, climate, and land-related objectives.

Organized by Germany’s BMUKN, Colombia’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Synergies Collaboration Platform, and UNEP, the event took place at the German Pavilion on 17 November 2025. [ENB Coverage of Event]