#21 - COP16 - intro, disappointments and hopes
Joshua Berger
CEO at BioInt | Transforming biodiversity impact & dependency measurement | Driving pragmatic & science-based actions for nature | The Biodiversity Footprint Intelligence Company | Views are my own
This twenty first issue of The Nature Intelligence Newsletter shares what is happening/happened at COP16 in Colombia. It covers:
What is COP16 and what to expect?
Business for Nature provided a very comprehensive briefing on what is at stakes at COP16 and more.
And daily bulletins on the negotiations have been made available by IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
Here is a short video summarizing what is at stakes:
Countries failing to meet their commitments and thoughts on country-level tracking of ecosystem health
My COP16: moving forward the Ecosystem Condition Protocol and meeting old & new friends
LinkedIn does not allow to embed posts with multiple photos in newsletter, so I am reposting here 3 posts.
COP16 is pretty intense for me as I meet with many key stakeholders & potential funders of the Ecosystem Condition Protocol and with old & new friends! But it’s also very rewarding and enriching with some crazy technical discussions on lead & lag indicators for biodiversity!
The Nature Intelligence from COP16 - Episode 03
Today, I’ll keep it short on content regarding the negotiations and the Global Biodiversity Framework and focus more on the events I attended, both to speak or to relax!
I presented the Ecosystem Condition Protocol at the Global Landscape Forum yesterday (see photos) and during 2 sessions we organized at a dedicated site today. Lots of interest and questions!
It was great to have Stéphanie Paquin-Jaloux from Schneider Electric and Rachel Kolbe Semhoun from Kering to share the needs and support of their companies with regards to the Ecosystem Condition Protocol during the session today (2nd session still to occur in truth).
It was great to finally meet in person Simas Gradeckas and hang out together after having spent months working together on biodiversity credits metrics & indicators through Teams and emails!
And I joined the Biodiversity Credit Alliance’s drinks (see photos), for some good discussions on biodiversity credits, including linkages with the Ecosystem Condition Protocol (thanks a lot Manesh Lacoul and Josh Brann for organizing those drinks and for all the good discussions!). I had to head off early though, as I was totally "punch drunk" (as someone would say, Pippa Howard 😉).
Of burgers, monkeys, jaguar and business
Yesterday, Marco Lambertini said "there is a jaguar in the room" at an event on biodiversity credits.
📰 The Nature Intelligence from COP16 - Episode 05
🐆 Yes, a jaguar (no jaguar icon sorry), not an elephant, because not only people avoid speaking about it, but failing to deal with it is also a lot more dangerous than for an elephant! That topic which requires clarity is the uses of biodiversity credits. I really liked that expression!
🍔 In Episode 04, I mentioned the difficulties to find vegetarian options in Cali. To be fair, there are many as someone pointed in the comments. But many restaurants also have no vegetarian option at all and are very heavy in high-impact ingredients, especially meat.
As a reminder, agriculture represents 80% of historic accumulated negative impacts and 40% of new "periodic loss" every year (https://lnkd.in/eyAZkNHp). Most of that impact is associated to livestock husbandry and the related feeds.
Well, thanks to Keith Bohannon and others, I now have many vegetarian options & I tried a veggie burger!
🐒 Thanks to Fabian Schmidt-Pramov from biometrio.earth who organized it and to Simas Gradeckas who sneaked me in, I was able to go on a trip in the jungle near Cali to look for monkeys!! This was so exciting and I am very happy to have connected with the biodiversity around Cali!
It reminded me of my time supporting the Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire, where I saw monkeys in the largest preserved forest in West Africa, and my unsuccessful search for Amur Tigers in north-east China when supporting Wildlife Conservation Society. Such experiences are required to stay grounded in reality.
Business & biodiversity
This 27/10 was the Business & Biodiversity day. Reflecting back on the progress since COP14 which I attended, the transformation has been profound.
Businesses & financial institutions now flock by hundreds, if not thousands, to biodiversity COP, and with them myriads of consultants & data providers. The agenda of the B&B day is compelling, with many "stars".
Is it contributing to transformational change for biodiversity though? Yes and no I think.
There are so many side events in parallel, dozens (hundreds?) of WhatsApp posts per day on the group created by Business for Nature, that it is overwhelming & very hard to follow. And there are duplications of events talking about the same topics.
But on the other side, the key persons are here and some events really do help progress in common understanding of hotly debated topics, to take decisions and to identify the next steps beyond COP. This was for instance the case at an event I joined on biodiversity credit metrics.
BTW, what do you think of this pedestrian crossing leading to a wall? We definitely need to avoid doing that in the biodiversity world: guidance leading to nowhere! (and I’m not saying we are)
COP announcements: the TNFD's Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF)
Have you seen those burgers?! Plane travel to come to Colombia may not be the highest impact on biodiversity (through the climate change pressure). It is hard to find vegetarian food in Cali, where COP16 is held! (if you have tips, let me know! And no, the 4 burgers were not for me!)
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📰 The Nature Intelligence from COP16 - Episode 04 Today, 1 take-away, and 1 thing I’m excited about.
1️⃣ The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) announced their plans for a Nature Data Public Facility (NDPF) and released a discussion paper outlining its roadmap: https://lnkd.in/ereh85t8
As often with TNFD’s work, this looks impressive! The visuals and the expected functionalities presented during a side-event demonstrated the hard-work and efficiency of the TNFD. Congrats to them!
What to expect from that Facility?
- It is not a data warehouse (i.e. i twill not store data) but rather a facilitator, linking data providers to end users through APIs
- It will be focused on state of nature data
By the end of 2025, the concept of the Facility should have been piloted, confirming whether or not it is required and a business model exists for it.
I feel like this is very welcome and should reduce costs and facilitate access to state of nature data layers.
However, geographical layers of state of nature indicators have very limited use cases and do not inform for instance on the pressures or changes in the state of nature caused by companies.
I can’t help but wonder how the advent of this Facility will impact the business models of start-ups focused on providing platforms for companies to input their data and conduct LEAP-aligned assessments to disclose against the TNFD, GRI or CSRD.
2️⃣ What I’m excited about
This Sunday I should go in the nature surrounding Cali with a group of amazing people to observe Colombian biodiversity! So grateful to have this opportunity!!
Please share your thoughts in comments! And please let me know if there is a topic you'd like me to cover in the future!
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Disclaimer: all views are mine and do not represent any institution or initiative's.
Access previous issues of the Nature Intelligence Newsletter:
Case studies and examples
#01 - Impacts on ecosystem integrity of a listed equity index assessed for the first time - STOXX600
Ecosystem condition definition and metrics
Biodiversity measurement tools
Biodiversity credits
Align
The Ecosystem Condition Protocol (EC Protocol)
Thank you for this. We can always rely on you for meaningful and up to date info. Grateful for your efforts 🙂
Director at Article 13
2moThank you for sharing
Nature Strategy at ING | ESG | Finance
2moHey 😊 this is so incredibly helpful, thank you! You’ve become the repository of news from Cali I trust. Really needed this week. Thanks. Quick question: what do we know of the progress of negotiations (that was not expected)? I’m specifically interested in how the debate outcomes will affect initiatives in specific sectors, like the food/Agriculture industry and what the financial sector will have to grapple with as a result and how we can support the outcomes