This motion has been proposed in recognition of the existential threat that climate change and the biodiversity crisis poses to the survival of future generations, arising from the failure to successfully develop and implement sufficiently ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions under the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change to date.
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With life on Earth facing two existential crises – climate and biodiversity – both of which result from human pressure on the natural world, we have only a small window left in which to act to solve them.

Each crisis is currently making the other worse. Every time we clear or log a primary forest, drain a wetland, dry out a peatland, bleach a coral reef or dam a wild river, we make climate change worse. Carbon once safely stored in those ecosystems is released; and once damaged natural ecosystems are more vulnerable to further loss and damage from drought, fire and climate change - increasing the release of carbon to the atmosphere and making the future for biodiversity on which our lives depend ever more tenuous.

Biodiversity underpins ecosystem integrity and stability and thus makes a vital contribution to long-term carbon storage by reducing the risk of carbon loss to the atmosphere. Protecting and restoring biodiversity and ecosystem integrity is thus a fundamental building block for successful climate action.

Preventing further damage and improving the integrity of all ecosystems is urgent. We can and must draw a line under the downwards spiral we are on. Unless we act to solve both crises together we will likely fail on both.

There is now a global conversation about the role of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) to the climate crisis lead by the UN Secretary General. However, if nature is to provide about 30% of the climate solution we must ensure that nature based climate action does 4 things: reduces emissions in relevant time frames (2030 and 2050); protects biodiversity and ensures ecosystem integrity; supports the rights and livelihoods of indigenous communities; and does no harm.

Primary, natural ecosystems are irreplaceable for their biodiversity and carbon storage value. Improving their integrity, stability and resilience is critically important. IUCN has a unique and important role to play in policy, education, communication and practice.

Peatlands store twice as much carbon as all forests on earth, contribute up to five percent of the global annual CO2 emissions and take decades to centuries to recover lost carbon; primary forests store 30-70% more carbon than wood production forests; trees sequester more carbon later in life than when young; and old trees keep sequestering carbon until they die.

Monocultures do little for biodiversity or climate mitigation and are at much higher risk of loss and damage from pests, disease, drought, fire and climate change. Planting trees only to cut them down 10 – 30 years later will do little to help meet desperately needed emissions reduction by 2030 and 2050.

Restoring degraded natural ecosystems offers superior climate and biodiversity outcomes. Research demonstrates the huge sequestration potential from restoring mangroves and peatlands. New research demonstrates that allowing secondary natural forests to reach their biological potential would provide far greater and timely benefits than planting new trees.

We must do everything we can to encourage governments to integrate climate and biodiversity action and ensure indigenous and local communities are supported to help protect and restore them. Doing so is the best and only way to protect the climate, biodiversity and ecosystem integrity right now.
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This motion calls for strengthening the links between actions to fight climate change (mitigation and adaptation) and to combat biodiversity loss and land degradation, including with the support of Nature-based Solutions (NBS). This joint approach aims to achieve ambitious objectives on different environmental aspects of the same global ecological crisis.

As living beings are key in climate regulation and impacted by its changes, the scientific connection "climate-biodiversity" is on the agenda of the academic sphere. This is demonstrated by the adoption at the 7th plenary session of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) of a decision for a future technical document on climate-biodiversity linkages, the special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Climate Change and the Oceans (SROCC) [adopted in September 2019] and the meeting between IPCC and IPBES experts held in 2018 in Paris. In addition, their respective reports on the links between climate, desertification, land degradation (IPCC, August 2019), and between biodiversity and land degradation and restoration (IPBES, March 2018) recall and confirm that sustainable land management and restoration is a major link with and between climate and biodiversity. Strengthening these links is essential to influence synergies and trade-offs between these two major challenges and the three Rio conventions when deploying concrete solutions based on sound scientific knowledge.

As for the UN conventions, the development of the climate action agenda and the biodiversity agenda under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the work of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) testify to this favourable dynamic. It is also the vision that underlies the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations Agenda, which link climate, biodiversity and development issues within a transversal and coherent framework. This motion calls for an upward revision of contributions determined at national level under the Paris Agreement (NDC), with a greater emphasis on NBS. It is also part of a longer-term perspective through the cycle of ambition of the Paris Agreement, which concerns both the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to climate change.

The main objective of the motion is to increase commitments on both fights against climate change and biodiversity loss, highlighting the synergies (and being aware of possible trade-offs). Thus, governments, their agencies and non-state actors are invited to integrate biodiversity in their climate policies and activities, and vice versa (integrating climate change in biodiversity activities). The motion gives importance to the development of nature-based solutions, and to strenghtening synergies between the Rio conventions, as well as between the IPCC and IPBES.

This motion is a unique opportunity for States, international conventions, researchers and other non-state actors to work together to develop solutions that will allow the international community to continuously enhance its ambition to achieve its climate and biodiversity objectives.

• Australian Conservation Foundation [Australia]
• Australian Marine Conservation Society [Australia]
• Australian Rainforest Conservation Society [Australia]
• Benin Environment and Education Society [Benin]
• Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit und Verbraucherschutz [Germany]
• Conservation International [United States of America]
• Department of Conservation [New Zealand]
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH [Germany]
• Ecological Society of the Philippines [Philippines]
• Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand [New Zealand]
• Groupe de Recherche et d'Action pour le Bien-Être au Bénin [Benin]
• Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères [France]
• Ministère des Relations Extérieures et de la Coopération de Monaco [Monaco]
• Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico [Spain]
• The WILD Foundation [United States of America]
• Wetlands International [The Netherlands]