Fariborz Zelli
Professor | Principal Investigator BECC | Excellent lärare
Groundhog Day at the 2024 United Nations biodiversity conference : What COP 16 can teach us for reforming environmental summits
Författare
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.
Avdelning/ar
- Statsvetenskapliga institutionen
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- LU profilområde: Naturbaserade framtidslösningar
Publiceringsår
2025-08
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Earth System Governance
Volym
25
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- Political Science
Nyckelord
- Biodiversity
- Convention on biological diversity
- COPs
- Environmental diplomacy
- Paris agreement
- Sustainable development goals
Aktiv
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 2589-8116