Cali, Colombia, Oct. 31, 2024 – It is imperative that governments meeting here at the UN’s Biodiversity Conference take action ensuring an alignment of the world’s biodiversity and climate agendas.
More than 190 governments are working toward a consensus-based COP decision to reaffirm the interlinkages between the crises of biodiversity loss and climate change and call for greater action from governments. This could include greater cooperation between UN policy fora designed to tackle these two challenges, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Dan Zarin, WCS’s Executive Director for Forest and Climate Change, issued this statement on the importance of fighting the climate and biodiversity crises with a united front:
“The Earth is heating faster than most climate models anticipated, with worsening impacts on people and the natural ecosystems we depend on. We have already exceeded the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold agreed by scientists and policymakers. Excess heat and drought have driven record-setting fires across the globe. The strength of recent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico grew rapidly because sea surface temperatures there were hotter than they’ve ever been in human history.
“Addressing both our climate and nature crises requires rapid acceleration in the transition away fom fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and unprecedented investment in the protection and strengthening of the Earth’s natural buffers against the impacts of the climate crisis – our forests, peatlands, grasslands and marine ecosystems. That investment must include support for Indigenous Peoples and other communities whose stewardship underpins the ecological integrity of nature.
“At the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, the connections between nature and climate are getting the attention they deserve, particularly from the set of governments and civil society organizations focused on charting a course from the CBD CoP in Cali this year to the 30th Climate CoP in Belem, Brazil at the end of 2025.
“But by themselves, new texts and agreements, rooted in carefully negotiated words, are unlikely to prove sufficient. The impacts of climate change and nature loss are accelerating. Time is not on our side. Actions from governments and business will matter most if they happen now.”
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Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
WCS combines the power of its zoos and an aquarium in New York City and a Global Conservation Program in more than 50 countries to achieve its mission to save wildlife and wild places. WCS runs the world’s largest conservation field program, protecting more than 50 percent of Earth’s known biodiversity; in partnership with governments, Indigenous People, Local Communities, and the private sector. It’s four zoos and aquarium (the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and the New York Aquarium ) welcome more than 3.5 million visitors each year, inspiring generations to care for nature. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org. Follow: @WCSNewsroom. For more information: +1 (347) 840-1242. Listen to the WCS Wild Audio podcast HERE.
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