Synergies between the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement: the role of policy milestones, monitoring frameworks and safeguards

The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and Paris Agreement (PA) are highly complementary agreements where each depends on the other’s success to be effective. The GBF offers a very specific framework of interim goals and targets that break down the objective of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) into a decade-spanning work plan. Comprised of 10 sections – including a 2050 vision and a 2030 mission, four overarching goals and 23 specific targets – the GBF is expected to guide biodiversity policy around the world in the coming years to decades. A similar set of global interim climate policy targets could translate the global temperature goal into concrete policy milestones that would provide policy makers and civil society with reference points for policy making and efforts to hold governments accountable. Beyond inspiring climate policy experts to convert temperature goals into policy milestones, GBF has the potential to strengthen the implementation of the PA at the nexus of biodiversity and climate (adaptation and mitigation) action. For example, the GBF can help to ensure that nature-based climate solutions are implemented with full consideration of biodiversity concerns, of the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and with fair and transparent benefit sharing arrangements. In sum, the GBF should be mandatory reading for all climate policy makers.The 2022 Kunming-Montreal GBF and the PA are synergistic and complementary.The PA puts significant pressure on Parties to engage in ambitious climate action, however, it lacks a clear framework of interim targets and measures that converts temperature goals into policy milestones; this in turn does not allow concrete evaluation of progress and creates barriers to action.In this context, the GBF could inspire climate policy makers or experts to create a strategic, non-binding framework document that formulates interim goals and measurable climate policy targets for the next decade.The GBF and PA are also connected through policy and implementation linkages.