At COP15, Mark Carney, the GFANZ co-chair, urged the private finance sector to ensure net-zero transition plan to include clear priorities on deforestation, nature protection and the restoration of biodiversity.

In order to integrate such a plan, there needs to be clear understanding of what we want to achieve. In terms of macro goals, we now have a plan which has been agreed upon at the COP 15 in Montreal end of 2022.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
has been signed up by 230 countries, mimicking the Paris agreement of climate change. The long-term objective to keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century comes with an intermediate target to achieve a Net-Zero World by 2050.

This also now called “Paris Agreement of Nature” should enable alignment between different stakeholders, from countries, companies and asset managers avoiding significantly harming companies and allocating capital towards solution providers.

At the end of negotiations, a series of what seems to be ambitious 4 long-term goals to be reached by 2050 have been set. Essentially, they call for:

• a halt of loss,
• a contribution to restoration,
• an enhancement of the biodiversity and
• a closing of the finance gap (estimated to USD 700 billion per year) with an emphasis on a just transition, making financial flows and technological support accessible to all Parties, in particular the least developed.

23 targets were set to be achieved by 2030, part of which an effective:

• management of land- and sea-use change and bring loss of highly important biodiverse areas close to zero;
• restoration of 30% of degraded ecosystems;
• conservation and management of 30% of land and 30% of oceans.

Guidance to achieve these goals remains blur, signatory states are requested to ensure the full integration of biodiversity into policies, regulations, planning and development processes. There is no binding requirement, the agreement relies entirely on countries goodwill.

Meanwhile, the WEF study shows that $44 trillion of economic value generation – over half the World’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services. This poses a material threat to a lot of business activities, on their operation or their supply chain. In anticipation of clear regulation and in order for companies to act on evolving nature-related risks and report on them the Task Force on Nature Disclosures (TFND) is being designed. We will go through in our next article.