Next week global leaders will convene in Cali, Colombia for an important meeting: the 16^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16). You’re probably more familiar with the climate COP that happens every year, but the biodiversity COP is a critical forum for addressing the loss of nature. Two years ago, at COP15 in Montreal, the nations of the world agreed to a new Global Biodiversity Framework, which set a goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. Next week’s meeting in Colombia is the first opportunity to take stock of progress and commit to implementation at scale.

Joining the show today to tell us more about COP16 and what’s at stake is Lucía Ruiz, WWF’s director for conservation areas. Lucía will be attending the conference in Colombia next week and is going to help us understand what needs to happen, and what success looks like, at this important meeting.

Links for More Info:

Lucía Ruiz bio: https://www.worldwildlife.org/experts/lucia-ruiz-bustos 

CBD COP16 explainer: https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-convention-on-biological-diversity-cop16-and-the-grand-plan-for-life-on-earth 

Chapters:

0:00 Preview

0:29 Intro

2:17 Lucía’s background and personal story

6:54 History of the Convention on Biological Diversity

12:10 Importance of CBD COPs

13:59 Context for CBD COP16

17:20 What happened at CBD COP15 in 2022?

22:22 Explaining the 30x30 target

27:36 Role of PFPs

28:27 State of play heading into COP16

33:26 What does success look like?

36:11 Fun facts about Colombia

39:28 Outro