Our planet's tightly woven, interconnected natural systems are vital to life and livelihoods. Yet with each passing season, we are witnessing the crushing realities of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
In its 2023 Global Risks Report, the World Economic Forum warns that six of the top 10 risks in the coming decade will stem directly from the loss and degradation of nature. In the face of extreme storms and floods, devastating droughts and wildfires, ocean dead zones and food scarcity, demands for systemic change have reached a crescendo. Unless we embark on a new course, our crises will only deepen.
Despite the challenge of reaching global agreements in such a fractured world, we have cause for optimism. Late last year, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) achieved a breakthrough after languishing in relative obscurity for many years. At the COP15 summit in Montreal in December, countries completed four years of negotiations and approved the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the most significant intergovernmental agreement on biodiversity in over a decade.
