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Five Key Takeaways from the U.N. COP Biodiversity Summit
Academy staff joined the California delegation in Cali, Columbia, to advocate for stronger biodiversity protection and inter-agency collaboration worldwide.
December 20, 2024
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COP 16 participants during negotiations on establishing a permanent body representing Indigenous interests. Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
For the first time in its history, the Academy participated in the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) biodiversity summit, held last month in Cali, Colombia.
After a historic summit two years ago where more than 190 countries committed to protecting 30% of Earth’s land and oceans by 2030, this COP ended with mixed success, and the Academy delegation similarly left with a mix of emotions. We inevitably felt frustrated by a lack of national and international progress, but we also felt energized by a sense of urgency and optimism about actions by state and local governments.
Here are five takeaways that help explain these seemingly contradictory reactions.
1. States like California can have a greater capacity to move the needle on biodiversity than nations and the international community.
Five of us represented the Academy at the biodiversity summit as part of the extended California delegation, which included California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot, members of his staff, leaders from various cities, academics, and several other environmental nonprofits.
Biodiversity, which is short for biological diversity, refers to the vast variety of all living things. California boasts the most biodiversity of any state—but also holds the dubious distinction of being the state with the most biodiversity in peril, primarily because of human activities resulting in habitat loss but increasingly exacerbated by climate change.
The Academy delegation (from left: Sydney Davenport; Shannon Bennett; Estefanía Pihen González; Amber Mace; Rebecca Johnson)
California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot speaks during a COP16 panel.
Similar to how California is a pioneer in addressing climate change, the state is proving to be a leader on addressing the biodiversity crisis. While many countries failed to deliver plans on how they would reach the 30x30 goals, the state of California delivered their plan. With the fifth-largest economy in the world, California underscored how state governments can pick up the mantle at setting policies and taking action to protect and increase biodiversity when there is political will, especially when it might be missing at a national or international level.
2. Nonprofits can and should play an important role in helping to meet biodiversity goals.
The Academy and other nongovernmental organizations have a role to play in providing important science to inform policy and actions by states and other “subnational” governments.
For instance, Rebecca Johnson, PhD, director of the Academy’s Center for Biodiversity and Community Science, noted in one of her talks that the Academy has been digitizing more than 1 million specimens in our collection of California plants, which will make data critical to understanding past biodiversity much more widely available. These data help set a baseline for biodiversity that is needed to establish and achieve 30x30 targets.
Rebecca Johnson (second from left) speaks during a panel on the importance of subnational entities in protecting local biodiversity.
Johnson also highlighted the Academy’s leadership in a first-of-its-kind partnership with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and iNaturalist. By sharing the 18+ million iNaturalist observations of California nature with different state agencies, we can greatly improve the breadth of data the state uses to inform resource allocation and conservation decisions.
These projects are part of the Academy’s wide-ranging work in California. Sydney Davenport, our Thriving California coordinator, gathered resources and information for us to share about our projects, made connections and found synergies with new contacts, and coordinated our entire trip to COP 16.
3. Natural history museums are coming together to share critical information for crowdsourcing nature-based solutions.
You can't manage and protect what you don't measure. Natural history museums, including the Academy, have collections of plant and animal specimens from all over the world that can provide valuable baseline information about nature in the past and present to guide conservation in the future—even while those baselines are shifting.
During the summit, Shannon Bennett, PhD, the Academy’s chief of science, met with other natural history museum leaders and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) staff to discuss how GBIF's free and open-access biodiversity data can help countries meet 2030 and 2050 biodiversity goals set at the COP two years ago.
By ensuring our collective natural history heritage is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime, natural history museums are democratizing data access to guide meaningful conservation actions.
Shannon Bennett leads the stewardship of the Academy's research collections, which include a number of historic Galápagos tortoise specimens vital to ongoing research on the archipelago.
Along with increasing access to biodiversity data, national history museum leaders are committed to inspiring and educating the public, encouraging discourse, and advocating for action. By helping people see themselves as a part of, not apart from, nature, natural history museums are also helping us see ourselves as part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis.
4. Providing youth with experiences that help them feel connected to nature can also spark large-scale action to regenerate biodiversity.
While speaking on two panels during COP 16, the Academy’s chief of education and learning, Estefanía Pihen González, PhD, echoed a theme that youth and international experts highlighted during the summit: Biodiversity education has the power to catalyze large-scale and sustained regeneration.
Estefanía Pihen González (third from right) speaks on a panel on the importance of biodiversity education.
Sara Sofía Díaz, a Colombian youth environmental activist, takes the stage at COP 16. Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
During Education Day, a side event organized with the support of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UNESCO, Pihen González spoke about the mechanisms to integrate biodiversity education into formal classroom instruction. During a second panel about scaling nature-based solutions in education organized by BC Parks Foundation and IUCN, she shared her inspiring vision to evolve the Academy’s approach to education by bringing Indigenous and community partners into the process of designing solutions.
These efforts will improve access to nature-based learning for historically marginalized groups and make learning even more relevant and empowering for youth by giving them the tools they need to make positive environmental change.
5. Indigenous and local communities won an important victory in representation.
One of the most powerful breakthroughs during the summit was an agreement to create a permanent body to represent Indigenous interests and formally incorporate this body into official decision-making and negotiations about biodiversity.
Indigenous communities live in and control some of our planet’s most biodiverse areas—including parts of the Columbian Amazon not far from where COP 16 was held—and they can and should be instrumental in protecting these places. This is true in California, and the Academy as an institution aims to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and science into more of our work here in our home state.
Activists of all ages and nationalities shared powerful messages of the importance of Indigenous representation during COP 16. Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
From Cali to California
The COP 16 summit will have a lasting impact on the Cali, Colombia, community for years to come. This was called “a people’s COP,” and we were blown away by the pride and passion for protecting their country’s biodiversity that the people of Cali, Colombia, showed while hosting the summit.
It was demonstrated in lasting and unexpected ways, from designing new sewer covers stamped with the COP logos and murals on the walls that will become permanent fixtures on their streets to a city center devoted to gathering people from across the region to celebrate culture, art, and biodiversity.
The COP 16 campus was framed by the forested mountains surrounding Cali. Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis
Colorful sewer grate covers illustrate the importance of the COP 16 summit on the Cali community.
As Secretary Crowfoot has said, “there is no time to waste.” We are so grateful to partner with so many institutions in California and beyond to bring our expertise and knowledge to bear on reversing biodiversity decline when the world needs it the most.
We left Colombia more passionate than ever about protecting and regenerating biodiversity at home and in other hotspots around the world for future generations of all species, including humans.
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