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Fariborz Zelli

Fariborz Zelli

Professor | Principal investigator BECC | Excellent Teaching Practitioner

Fariborz Zelli

Groundhog Day at the 2024 United Nations biodiversity conference : What COP 16 can teach us for reforming environmental summits

Author

  • Fariborz Zelli

Summary, in English

With 23,000 registered participants and unprecedented media attention, the 16th conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, was the largest in the 32-year history of these biannual meetings. In terms of successes, the Cali conference established a new subsidiary body to protect concerns of indigenous communities and local populations as defenders of nature, along with a new voluntary mechanism on benefit-sharing. The Cali COP may also be remembered for its civil society zone which turned into a vibrant platform of social and cultural encounters. On a more critical note though, negotiations in Cali shared the fate of the climate COP in Baku just two weeks later and, arguably, of inflated environmental summits in general. They were slowed down by typical bargaining strategies and stalemates and failed to address crucial implementation, financing and review gaps. While the conference was suspended unceremoniously on November 2, 2024, the much more concise resumed sessions in December 2024 and February 2025 achieved crucial breakthroughs on these matters. A lesson learned from these turnarounds is to complement larger COPs more regularly with smaller and solution-oriented meetings with decision-making power – instead of using such formats only for firefighting. Moreover, to avoid exaggerated greenwashing and lobbying like in Cali, future COPs should exhibit a more equitable representation of non-governmental actors and benefit from a more careful selection process of conference venues.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • LU Profile Area: Nature-based future solutions

Publishing year

2025-08

Language

English

Publication/Series

Earth System Governance

Volume

25

Document type

Journal article (letter)

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Political Science

Keywords

  • Biodiversity
  • Convention on biological diversity
  • COPs
  • Environmental diplomacy
  • Paris agreement
  • Sustainable development goals

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2589-8116