France at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15)

This international event aims to set targets to limit the decline in the biological diversity of ecosystems. France is aware of the threats biodiversity loss poses to our societies, and would like this event to rally global support for nature.

France’s ambitions for COP15 targets

The 15^th United Nations Biodiversity Conference must enable the adoption of a new global biodiversity framework which sets the main targets for 2050. This framework will succeed the Aichi Targets, adopted at COP10 in Nagoya in 2010.

In its first report in 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) made some alarming findings on the state of ecosystems :

• One million species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades,
• 75% of the land-based environment has been altered by human actions,
• 50% of coral reefs have been lost since 1870.

These findings demonstrate the urgent need to reassess our relationship with nature and generate “transformative changes” in our societies.

It is believed that over 50% of global GDP depends on the proper functioning of nature. This leads to benefits in several areas :

• Cleaning of air and water,
• Soil fertilization,
• Pollination,
• Protection from natural disasters,
• Fighting global warming through natural carbon sinks (forests, oceans).

All these ecosystem services must be better protected by the States Parties.

As for the climate, biodiversity negotiations are closely coordinated between all EU Member States and the European Commission. Alongside its European partners, France is working to achieve an ambitious agreement. France is aware of the threats biodiversity loss poses to our societies, and would like this COP15 to rally global support for nature.

Targets

The following are some of France’s priorities :

• Protecting 30% of the earth’s land and sea by 2030 (“30x30” target).
• Restoring 3 billion hectares of degraded ecosystems,
• Strengthening synergies between the climate and biodiversity through nature-based solutions,
• Reducing risks and practices linked to pesticides,
• Promoting agro-ecology.

These priorities meet the needs of protection, sustainable use of biodiversity and promotion of ecosystem services.

The fight against the erosion of biodiversity must rally all relevant actors, including the private sector (agriculture, fisheries, pharmaceuticals). That is why the negotiated framework must set clear and comparable targets for both the public and private sectors.

Finance

Finance to implement the agreement must match its ambitions. France supports the mobilization of all available sources. This means increased use of domestic finance by aligning public and private financial flows with positive or neutral activities for biodiversity, as has been planned for the Paris Climate Agreement. Furthermore, all bilateral and multilateral donors (including development banks) will have to support developing countries to implement the global framework and combine the imperatives of the preservation of biodiversity and development. To do so, biodiversity criteria must be included in official development assistance and specific finance must be increased.

France is playing a full part in global efforts to help developing countries: it will double its international finance for biodiversity to reach €1 billion in 2025.

Accountability

Finally, the framework must have a robust implementation mechanism enabling countries to quickly roll out these targets at national level, while moving forward in a coordinated, transparent manner at global level. This mechanism is built around 3 pillars :

• national planning,
• a report on implemented actions,
• a global assessment of the collective implementation.

France and the European Union would like States Parties to develop strategies and national plans to meet the targets of the framework over the next two years. France also encourages the implementation of a collective implementation analysis mechanism (the global assessment) to revise national targets and regularly scale up ambitions, based on the existing Paris Agreement model.

Links between COP15 and COP27

The targets of the COP27 on climate, which took place in Egypt in November 2022, complement those of the COP15 on biodiversity. Global warming and biodiversity loss have mutual impacts. IPBES has identified global warming as one of the main pressures on biodiversity. Conversely, biodiversity loss speeds up global warming, as the deterioration of natural carbon sinks (forests, wetlands, oceans) reduces the global absorption capacities of our carbon emissions.

Since the climate and biodiversity are interdependent, France defends nature-based solutions, as defined by the United Nations Environment Assembly. This approach encourages development projects that promote the role of ecosystems for fighting global warming, such as the Great Green Wall Accelerator which promotes agro-ecology activities and the restoration of land in the Sahel-Saharan strip. France has also set the target of allocating 30% of its climate finance to projects that also help biodiversity by 2025.