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Climate Week was held in New York City from September 23 to 27, 2024. Since 2009, it has been an annual gathering where a variety of stakeholders (government representatives from all levels, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, academia and more) come together.
[Our articles simplify complex subjects and negotiations. For details on the negotiation texts and their nuances, please visit the CBD, UNFCCC and IISD websites. Our English texts are automatically translated from French]
Although the majority of events taking place during Climate Week focused on the theme of climate change, biodiversity was also present. Among the ten themes guiding Climate Week, nature took pride of place.
Public-private partnerships at the heart of the 4th World Biodiversity Summit
On September 26, the World Biodiversity Summit was held. Now in its fourth year, this summit on the theme of biodiversity represented a full day's work, bringing together a variety of players mobilized by a shared determination to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, each acting on their own scale and in their respective sector.
Biodiversity and climate: two sides of the same coin
The 2024 Summit program focused on the potential and opportunities for developing public-private partnerships to secure sufficient investment to halt and even reverse global biodiversity loss, while limiting global warming. Describing biodiversity and climate as two sides of the same coin, the Summit emphasized the synergies that need to be skilfully and responsibly harnessed to ensure that achieving carbon neutrality is in line with the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.
The organizations and individuals present at the Summit addressed key issues such as sustainable supply chains, nature-related dependencies and risks, and a nature-friendly global economic transition, in addition to carbon neutrality. These issues are likely to come up again at COP16, in formal negotiations between CBD member states, but also in informal discussions between observer organizations representing members of civil society, indigenous communities, the private sector, industry and youth, among others.
An invitation to step up ambition and action in terms of solutions, investments and partnerships for nature and climate
Calling for greater ambition and action on joint climate and biodiversity solutions, investments and partnerships, the Summit called on all stakeholders to bridge the agendas of the international biodiversity and climate negotiations, both taking place this autumn within weeks of each other.
Nature Hub under the banner of climate- and nature-friendly financing
A reminder of the importance and interrelationship of the climate and biodiversity crises, the Nature Hub was held at Climate Week for a second year. Organizing the Nature Hub under the theme of “transitioning to a nature-positive economy and a net-zero economy”, the Nature4Climate Coalition and 12 non-profit organizations (NPOs) also sought to mobilize public and private sector players around the financing needed to address both global crises, with a particular focus on the upcoming COP16, COP29 and COP30.
Pact for the Future, tracing THE LINKS between the Kunming-Montreal Framework and the Paris Agreement
This year, Climate Week took place at the same time as the vast majority of UN member states adopted the Compact for the Future. This pact recalls a plurality of global objectives (climate, biodiversity, gender equality, poverty eradication, peace, among other topics), echoing in particular the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With regard to biodiversity, this pact reaffirms that “we must conserve, restore and sustainably use our planet's ecosystems and natural resources to ensure the health and well-being of present and future generations” and that we must “achieve a world in which humanity lives in harmony with nature”.
Protect biodiversity to ensure the health and well-being of present and future generations.
It also states “[... . reiterate the importance of preserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems for the achievement of the temperature target set in the Paris Agreement, including by redoubling efforts to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems that act as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases, and by preserving biodiversity, while establishing social and environmental safeguards, in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”.