Information

Biodiversity and Climate Change

The Conference of the Parties

1. Welcomes the report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biological Diversity and Climate Change (UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/9/11 and UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/9/INF/12) as scientific advice provided in response to paragraphs 11 and 18 of decision V/4, as a basis for future work;

2. Invites Parties, other Governments, international organizations and other bodies to make use of the report on climate change and biodiversity prepared by the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biological Diversity and Climate Change in order to promote synergies at the national level between the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity, when implementing climate-change activities and their relation to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;

3. Invites the national focal points for the Convention on Biological Diversity to bring the report to the attention of their counterpart focal points for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and for other relevant agreements, in order to promote synergy at national level;

4. Notes with appreciation that the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advice of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has welcomed the report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group and has encouraged Parties to the UNFCCC to make use of it for their national purposes as a relevant  source of useful information for their national purposes;

5. Notes that the Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands at its eighth meeting adopted resolution VIII/3 on climate change and wetlands, which, inter alia, called on relevant countries to take action to minimize the degradation as well as promote the restoration. of those peatlands and other wetland types that are significant carbon stores or have the ability to sequester carbon and supports the request by the Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands to the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change to prepare a technical paper on the relationship between wetlands and climate change;

6. Welcomes the proposed assessment on peatlands biodiversity and climate change being undertaken by Wetlands International and the Global Environment Center with the support of UNEP-GEF, the Government of Canada, the Netherlands and others and encourages the involvement of parties in this assessment and in preparations for the consideration of its findings by SBSTTA prior to the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties.

7. Notes also that there are opportunities to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in ways that are mutually beneficial and synergistic, and that contribute simultaneously to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and other international agreements, all within broader national development objectives;

8. Further notes that the ecosystem approach provides a framework for the integrated management of land, water and living resources. Its application could facilitate the formulation of climate change mitigation and adaptation projects that also contribute to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use at the national level;

9. Invites Parties, other Governments, international organizations and other bodies to facilitate building capacity related to accessing information and tools, and for enhancing coordination at national level to ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation projects deliver environmental and social benefits and are consistent with national priorities.

10. Calls for where national circumstances allow case-studies on interlinkages between biodiversity and climate change following a common format developed by the joint liaison group;

11. Invites Parties, Governments, funding agencies, research bodies and other organizations to address the gaps identified in the Report in order to help to optimize biodiversity conservation and sustainable use within climate change adaptation projects, as well as mitigation projects addressing the adverse effects of human activities over the long term at the national, regional, and global levels;

12. Encourages Parties to take measures to manage ecosystems so as to maintain their resilience extreme climate events and to help mitigate and adapt to climate change;

13. Requests the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, with the support of the Executive Secretary, to ensure that the results of the report on climate change and biodiversity prepared by the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group are incorporated into the ongoing work of the Convention on Biological Diversity, whenever appropriate, when the respective programmes of work are due for review according to the Multi Year Programme of Work of the Conference of the Parties (decision VII/31)and in particular, in the programmes of work on forest biodiversity, marine and coastal biodiversity, mountain biodiversity, inland water biodiversity, biodiversity of dry and sub-humid lands, agricultural biodiversity, indicators, impact assessment, and incentive measures, without implying obligations on Parties additional to those under the Convention on Biological Diversity;

14. Requests the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, as the next stage of its work on the interlinkages between biodiversity and climate change to develop, for the consideration of the Conference of the Parties, advice or guidance for promoting synergy among activities to address climate change at the national, regional and international level where appropriate, including activities to combat desertification and land degradation, and activities for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity;

15. Invites the conferences of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification to collaborate with the Convention on Biological Diversity, through the joint liaison group as appropriate, in the development of advice or guidance to Parties in implementing activities that are mutually supportive of the objectives of the three conventions at the local, sub-national, and national levels; and to involve biodiversity experts in relevant activities of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including methodological issues;

16. Invites the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change, inter alia through its Fourth Assessment Report, to continue its work on the relationship between climate change and biodiversity including the detection and attribution to climate change of observed biodiversity losses, taking into account the target adopted by decision VI/26 of the Conference of the Parties to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels;

17. Further invites the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to collaborate with the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice on the use of scenarios addressing biodiversity changes in relation to climate change; 

18. Invites sources of funding to provide financial support to developing country Parties, in particular the least developed and small island developing States among them, and countries with economies in transition, where appropriate, for:

(a)  Country-driven activities, including pilot projects, aimed at projects related to ecosystem conservation, restoration of degraded lands and marine environments and overall ecosystem integrity that take into account impacts of climate change; 

(b)  Assistance in capacity-building with the aim of increasing the effectiveness in addressing environmental issues through their commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, inter alia by applying the ecosystem approach;

(c)  Assistance in developing synergy-oriented programmes to conserve and sustainably manage all ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands and marine environments that also contribute to poverty eradication;

  19. Notes that the report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group has been transmitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and through the Secretariat to its bodies, and requests the Executive Secretary to transmit the report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group also to the secretariats of the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Ramsar Convention, the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol, the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the Convention on Migratory Species, the United Nations Development Programme, the Global Environment Facility, and the United Nations Forum on Forests, the World Heritage Convention and the Man and the Biosphere programme of UNESCO, as well as relevant organizations and bodies including, inter alia, other members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, IUCN, and the World Wide Fund for Nature;

20. Further requests the Executive Secretary, in preparation for the next stage of the work on climate change and biodiversity by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, gather in collaboration with, the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and other relevant organizations, within their given mandates, relevant material for promoting synergy between climate-change mitigation and adaptation activities and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, drawing upon:

(a)  Case-studies, contributed by Parties and others, illustrating the potential of biodiversity both to mitigate and adapt to global climate change, and lessons from these experiences, including lessons learned from extreme climate events;

(b)  Existing relevant tools, approaches and processes for designing projects, and evaluating their economic, environmental and social implications, related to mitigating or adapting to climate change within the broader context of sustainable development both at the national and regional level.