Abstract:

Background & Aims: The post-2020 global biodiversity framework (the “Framework”) being prepared by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be negotiated and adopted at the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP15). The Framework is a landmark and plays an important guiding role for future global biodiversity conservation, economic and social development. Due to the continuous loss of biodiversity, the vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050 can only be fulfilled through transformative actions. In this paper, we describe the progress of the negotiations of the 22 action-oriented targets in drafting the Framework as at the fourth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (hereinafter referred to as “OEWG”), so as to provide a perspective and methodological reference for management departments, scientific research institutions, enterprises, social organizations, and professionals engaged in biodiversity education and conservation to understand the reshaping of the international economic order through global biodiversity governance.

Progress: The Framework is built around a theory of change, and aims to set ambitious, practical and balanced biodiversity conservation goals. Biodiversity greatly affects human beings, and the actualization of the goals and targets set by the Framework will have a great impact on the production and consumption of human society. For several reasons including the complexity of the Convention mechanisms and Framework negotiations, few people have a full understanding of the content of the Framework and the negotiation process it entails. After four meetings of OEWG, the structure and elements of the Framework have been defined. The 22 urgent action-orientated targets over the next decade for 2030 are of greatest concern. The targets break down into three components: reducing threats to biodiversity (targets 1-8), meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit-sharing (targets 9‒13) and tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming (targets 14‒22).

Prospects: In this paper, we discussed the core topics of the negotiations, such as the 30 × 30 target and resource mobilization in the Framework in order to provide a reference for relevant stakeholders to better grasp the dynamics of environmental politics and trends of participating in an international competition of science and technology, trade, investment, manufacturing, and other fields. This will promote people’s living in harmony with nature, and help build a planetary community of life with a shared future.

Key words: biodiversity, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, implementation mechanism, targets, post-2020 global biodiversity framework