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As COP28 draws to a close, one thing is crystal clear – we are at a pivotal moment.
Our CEO Ian Dunn reflects on the results of the climate conference and why there is reason to hope.
The 28th UN Climate Conference of Parties has just drawn to a close in Dubai, during which there had been fierce negotiations over the future of fossil fuels.
In the early hours of this morning the gavel went down and 198 governments agreed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner… so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”. This wording is not as strong as we had hoped, but it is the first time fossil fuels have ever been explicitly mentioned in a final agreement (in almost 30 years of climate COPs) and as the UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell said, it is the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels.
This issue is at the heart of climate action and this agreement was long overdue.
There are other key outcomes from this COP which give us reasons for hope:
More specifically focused on the intertwined climate and nature crises, we welcome two new initiatives coming out of this COP.
1.COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action
The acknowledgement and recognition of the adverse impacts of climate change on agriculture and food systems, and on billions of people including smallholders that are dependent on their resilience for food and livelihoods, is a great step in the right direction. Just two years ago, there was little or no mention of this issue, yet 158 governments endorsed the Declaration at COP28.
2. COP28 Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People
This was an absolutely vital step in ensuring the climate and biodiversity crises are no longer considered as separate issues. We have known for a long time that they are fundamentally and intrinsically linked, and this is the first step in connecting the outcomes of the UNFCCC COP28 and the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
This announcement was made: ‘At COP28 during Nature, Land Use and Ocean Day, we affirm that there is no path to fully achieve the near- and long-term goals of the Paris Agreement or the 2030 goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework without urgently addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation together in a coherent, synergetic and holistic manner, in accordance with the best available science.’
Eighteen governments have endorsed this declaration so far and we need to see many more signing up to this joined-up approach in the weeks ahead.
At Plantlife, we work tirelessly to bring the value of grasslands to the forefront of conversations around farming, nature, biodiversity and climate, both in the UK and internationally. Covering more than half the Earth’s land surface and with the livelihoods of around 800 million people depending on them, the importance of grasslands and savannahs cannot be underestimated.
More generally, this COP marked a turning point for the role of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition of their contribution in not only safeguarding 80% of the world’s biodiversity, but their knowledge in living in true harmony with nature. Adopting this way of thinking will be a pivotal step in combating the climate crisis. Plantlife is aware of the importance of Indigenous knowledge particularly when it comes to Important Plant Areas (IPAs), with one of the criteria for identification being related to cultural significance.
You can read more about IPAs here specifically the Chiquitano people of Bolivia who identified 18 IPA sites to protect the Chiquitano dry forest which many of the community depend on for their food and livelihoods.
It is safe to say there was a healthy dose of concern and scepticism about this COP. What would come out of it? Would this be ambitious enough to secure a safe future for generations to come – from large cities in the Global North to the Small Island Developing States on the frontline of the climate crisis? The reference to fossil fuels and the language in the final text can be considered a win, but now we look to parties to solidify the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ of implementing the measures to ensure we stay at or below 1.5 degrees of warming.
One thing is crystal clear: we are at a pivotal moment, for the stability of our planet and all life on Earth, and Plantlife will keep working to show how wild plants and fungi can be at the heart of the solution.
Our Global Advocacy Coordinator, Claire Rumsey, shares her experience at COP28 understanding the role of nature and Indigenous Peoples in the climate conversation.
This WWF & Plantlife document makes the case for the world to recognise the vital role that grasslands and savannahs can play in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises.
We are teaming up with WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature) at COP28 to press for better recognition of grasslands and savannahs, alongside other habitats.
Our Global Advocacy Coordinator, Claire Rumsey, will be at COP28 to speak up for the vital role of wild plants and fungi in the fight against climate change
At Plantlife, we are focused in gaining recognition for grassland ecosystems around the world as nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. Storing between 25-35% of the world’s terrestrial carbon, they are an underutilised resource.
Today is Nature Day at the climate COP28 in Dubai. Having just spent a week at the conference, I’m taking the chance to reflect on the role of nature in these huge global negotiations.
It was my first UN Climate conference and a truly eye-opening experience. With around 100,000 participants from around the world and all sectors, I was able to listen to and connect with a huge diversity of new people, as well as our NGO partners in the global Climate Action Network.
One of Plantlife’s ambitions for COP28 is to see greater recognition of nature as a powerful part of the solution to climate change, as these crises are intrinsically linked. We know that wild plants and fungi are the foundation of all ecosystems and our natural world.
So, when we say ‘nature’, we mean wild plants and fungi – I said this to many people in Dubai, giving them pause for thought. Plants and fungi are so often seen as just a green backdrop to other wildlife, yet they deserve a place in spotlight on Nature Day.
We are calling for COP28 decisions that put wild plants, fungi and all nature at the heart of climate action. To make this really work, we need to see joined up working between the UN climate convention and the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), agreed through the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In practice, this means that governments need to cross-reference their net zero and climate adaptation plans with their biodiversity strategies, including by delivering the global plant actions as part of the GBF.
On my last night in Dubai, I chose a side event to attend at random and it was the best, most meaningful one I went to that week. It was organised by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) on women implementing climate justice solutions.
At climate COPs, it’s easy to get swept up in the numbers, the scale of the conference itself and sometimes being star-struck with the high-profile climate influencers in attendance. But this event was held by Indigenous women and was incredibly powerful and emotive.
The speakers shared their lived experience of what it’s like to be on the frontline of fighting a global crisis.
This is a global crisis that Indigenous Peoples played no hand in creating, yet which has had an often-horrifying impact on their relationship with nature. They are also rarely given a role in the solutions.
One speaker, when referencing the CBD slogan of ‘living in harmony with nature’, said how shocking it is that Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge was not being called to the forefront of decision-making – when these are decisions about the natural world with which they have always lived in absolute harmony and balance.
The UN states that at least a quarter of the world’s land area is owned, managed, used or occupied by Indigenous Peoples and so the fate of nature, our climate and Indigenous Peoples is deeply interlinked.
There are signs of hope. Brazilian President Lula da Silva handed an opportunity to speak at a COP event to their Minister of Environment, Marina Silva. Having grown up in the forests of Brazil, she has a deep personal understanding of how Indigenous communities depend on the forests and live in them. The Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Minister, Sonia Guajajara, is leading the country’s negotiating team after the President left the conference. This is a small step towards doing the right thing, despite the President facing criticism and winning the Fossil of the Day Award earlier this week for announcing the expansion of oil production.
The alarming speed and scale of climate change and biodiversity loss demands urgent and large-scale action. Small steps are not enough. We are looking for strong and ambitious action on nature and climate from the world’s governments at COP28.
The CoP 28 Presidency set out 4 pillars in its COP28 Action Plan – one being ‘focusing on people, nature, lives and livelihoods’ and another ‘fostering full inclusivity’. These are essential foundations for action, harnessing the power of nature and Indigenous People’s knowledge to create a liveable world for future generations.
One of the key connections between people and nature is farming – we all need to eat! Tomorrow is Food Day at COP28 so look out for our blog on the role of grasslands and savannahs in supporting food security, livelihoods, biodiversity and carbon storage.
Covering more than half the Earth’s land, with around 800 million people being dependant on them globally for their livelihoods and food, and their ability to hold up to 35% of the Earth’s land carbon, they really fit the bill. Yet somehow grasslands remain undervalued and overlooked compared to forests and oceans.
See how Plantlife is working with WWF and others to highlight these critical ecosystems.
Claire
img:istock/Guilherme de Melo
Did you know that more than 90% of fungi are unknown to science?
Throughout February, Plantlife is participating in Reverse the Red’s Fungi month – a chance to better understand the mysterious worlds of some of our rarest fungi species.
Reverse the Red is a global movement aimed at raising awareness of the work being done by organisations and communities to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss, ensuring the survival of wild species and ecosystems.
The initiative brings together scientists, advocates, and partners who use data and science-based conservation approaches, with the goal of reducing our rarest species vulnerability, and eventually removing them from the Red list.
Red lists are a globally recognised way of listing and identifying the threat of extinction to species. Species are assessed objectively based on ongoing scientific information and research.
The world’s most comprehensive list is the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There are other more local red lists, such as the Great British Red List.
Fungi are a crucial partner to nearly all life on Earth, with an estimated 2.5 million species of fungi found around the world. But more than 90% of fungal species are unknown to science.
This lack of data means it is hard to know if some of these important species need conservation help.
Only 0.4 % of fungi that we know about have had their global conservation status assessed for the IUCN Red List Assessment. That is only 0.02% of the fungi estimated to exist – imagine the amazing species yet to be found!
People around the world are getting outside and recording fungi to help better understand them.
Since the beginning of 2020 more than 10,200 species of fungi have been named as new to science.
This includes 6 new species of webcap uncovered in the UK – 3 in Scotland and 3 in England, such as Cortinarius heatherae, spotted alongside a river beside Heathrow airport.
Join Sarah Shuttleworth who discovers a rare fungi, and the secrets it reveals about the area it’s found in. Learn why recording fungi like this is so important.
Did you spot colourful waxcaps last autumn? It's not too late to tell us by taking part in the #WaxcapWatch, helping us to identify and protect waxcap grasslands.
Discover the pressures grassland waxcaps and their habitats face, and how you can take action to protect them for the future.
We are calling governments around the world to recognise the importance of plants and fungi biodiversity for the planet.
Discover more about what Plantlife are doing to champion wild plants and fungi globally.
In December 2022 countries, organisations, and people from around the world gathered in Montreal to see a new global agreement to protect and restore biodiversity adopted at CoP 15.
Plantlife along with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew were there to ensure that plants and fungi were not forgotten. From our joint exhibition stand we spoke passionately to governments, NGOs, research organisations members of Youth Groups and Indigenous communities about the value of wild plants and fungi, and the need to maintain and preserve their extraordinary diversity worldwide.
On the 9 December 2022, we held a side event on Important Plant Areas-a tool for implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework (which you can watch here: Important Plant Areas- a tool for Implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework (CoP15 side event)). Important Plant Areas are an invaluable tool for helping to tackle the ecological, climate and societal crises we are currently facing.
We know that life on earth depends on its extraordinary diversity of plants and fungi, yet two in every five wild plants are threatened with extinction.
Far too often, world’s flora and fungi are relegated to a green background for more charismatic wildlife.
Plantlife has been working with partners over the past twenty years to make sure that plant conservation is given priority within global biodiversity agreements. In 2002, this led to the United Nations CBD adopting a Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which was updated 10 years later.
We helped establish the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation and coordinated the Important Plant Areas programme – an important tool for achieving Target 5 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation – to protect and manage at least 75 per cent of the most important areas for plant diversity of each ecological region.
The impact of the GSPC and the ongoing importance of specific plant conservation actions was recognised when in Decision 15/5 the Monitoring Framework for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework the CBD Secretariat:
“Invites the Global Partnership on Plant Conservation, with the support of the Secretariat and subject to the availability of resources, to prepare a set of complementary actions related to plant conservation to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and other relevant decisions adopted at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and also based on previous experiences with the implementation of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation as described in the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook1 and the 2020 Plant Conservation Report,2 for consideration by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice.”
Plantlife is now working closely with members of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation to establish this set of complementary actions.
Plantlife is now working closely with members of the GPPC to establish this set of complementary actions.
Downland and read our Cop15 Briefing Document
IPAs are key sites for exceptional botanical richness; rare, threatened and socio-economically valuable plant species; and rare and threatened habitats. Plantlife developed the first IPA criteria in 2001.
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