Open Letter

April 22, 2024 

The CfN Global Steering Committee constitutes the highest-profile political group working to safeguard nature. This esteemed group of former heads of state, ministers, diplomats, and scientists has tirelessly championed the global goal to protect and conserve at least 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030. Against the backdrop of increasingly concerning headlines regarding climate change and nature loss, they are urging G7 leaders to prioritize the delivery of commitments made to invest in nature. The full letter can be read here.

Media Statement

May 20, 2023

On the eve of World Biodiversity Day, we, the undersigned, are calling on the wealthiest nations to prioritise urgent action to protect and restore biodiversity and just transition their economies to be nature positive. We are encouraged that the G7 leader’s statement reaffirmed a commitment to the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and pledged to meet its goals and targets. 

Read full statement.

Context News - Op-Ed

18 May, 2023

We are facing two parallel crises: climate change and global biodiversity loss. Climate change has captured most of the headlines, but scientists say the nature crisis is equally or even more important. We can't solve one without solving the other. A landmark assessment of global biodiversity in 2019 warned that nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history.

Read more.

Carbon Pulse

17th May, 2023

The funds to meet a $20 billion finance target for biodiversity by 2025, a key component of last year’s landmark Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), should not come from biodiversity credits according to the Samoan Minister for Environment speaking during an event on Wednesday, with other stakeholders also suggesting the nascent market is not likely to be ready to scale sufficient finance within less than three years.

Read more.

GOV.UK

May 14, 2022
We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, who are united in our resolve to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C in reach, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and to reach net zero emissions globally by mid-century:

• recognize that the impacts of the climate and biodiversity crises pose a threat to international peace and stability where people and ecosystems face existential perils, with disproportionate impacts on individuals in developing, lower-income, fragile and conflict affected states, and where the international order as we know it will be increasingly put to the test

• understand that because we share the climate and ecosystems, each nation’s security is indelibly tied to that of others – the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation (both terrestrial and marine) know no borders

• underscore that these challenges offer an opportunity for collective action (across different sectoral mandates) and multilateral cooperation to understand and address the peace and security implications of climate change and environmental degradation

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Euronews

March 10, 2022
The CDP event celebrates the companies and cities which are working to achieve greater sustainability, and the highlights are being broadcast on Euronews, in a special programme hosted by Méabh McMahon.

NGOs worldwide have called for the Earth to become 'nature positive' by 2030, a goal leaders of the G7 group of industrialised countries have endorsed. Nature positivity entails halting and reversing today’s catastrophic loss of nature and biodiversity.

2030 is a crucial deadline, Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary at the Convention on Biological Diversity told Euronews, because “what is at stake is the loss of biodiversity reaching unprecedented rates in the history of mankind.”

“We need to see a better integration of nature and climate change in decision-making on an equal footing at the national level,” she argued, adding: “No time to waste. Scientists have told us we either take action now or perish.”

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China Dialogue

August 17, 2021
If we needed more proof of our biodiversity crisis, a herd of wild elephants marching through China has been doing the job in the most heart-warming way possible. They’ve been walking north from Xishuangbanna for months, and their antics – raising babies, getting drunk, barging down doors and turning on taps to drink – have captivated the public. But so have the more serious reasons for their unusual migration, which local experts say is probably caused by the destruction of primary forests outside protected areas, forcing elephants to find new places to roam.

As the Asian elephants reached the city of Kunming, its local government deployed an array of tactics to keep the herd out, blocking roads and laying trails of pineapples and sweetcorn to divert them.

Kunming will be clearing away the pineapple trails to welcome world leaders as China hosts the COP15 UN biodiversity conference. A herd of wild elephants walking through Yunnan is a powerful symbol of the urgency that’s forcing our nature crisis onto the agenda of global leaders.

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Reuters

June 28, 2021
A growing global push to safeguard nature by pledging to protect about a third of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 will fall short unless biodiversity-rich Southeast Asian nations get behind the ambitious proposal, environmentalists have warned.

Leaders of the G7 wealthy nations this month backed a coalition of about 60 countries that have already promised to conserve at least 30% of their land and oceans by 2030 (30x30) to curb climate change and the loss of plant and animal species.

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World Economic Forum

June 23, 2021
G7 leaders recently announced that “our world must not only become net zero, but also nature positive, for the benefit of both people and the planet.”

This represents a real paradigm shift in how nations, businesses, investors and consumers view nature. In the past, the mantra among a growing number of inspired leaders has been to do less harm, to reduce impact and to tread lightly across our world. Of course, this mantra remains.

But now there is a new worldview gathering pace: "nature positive." This asks: What if we go beyond damage limitation? What if our economic activities not only minimize impact, but also enhance ecosystems?

A nature positive approach enriches biodiversity, stores carbon, purifies water and reduces pandemic risk. In short, a nature positive approach enhances the resilience of our planet and our societies.

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New York Times

June 13, 2021
President Biden joined with leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations on Sunday to take action aimed at holding down global temperatures, but failed to set a firm end date on the burning of coal, which is a primary contributor to global warming.

Mr. Biden and six other leaders of the Group of 7 nations promised to cut collective emissions in half by 2030 and to try to stem the rapid extinction of animals and plants, calling it an “equally important existential threat.” They agreed that by next year they would stop international funding for any coal project that lacked technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions and vowed to achieve an “overwhelmingly decarbonized” electricity sector by the end of the decade.

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Campaign for Nature

June 13, 2021
Today G7 Heads of State announced a joint commitment to a historic “Nature Compact” during their meeting in Cornwall, UK.  The Nature Compact is the most wide-ranging and ambitious set of coordinated actions to address the crisis facing nature ever agreed to by G7 countries. 

 Three of the Campaign for Nature’s key priorities feature prominently in the G7 Nature Compact, including:

• An agreement to support new global targets to protect and conserve at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of global ocean by 2030.  The agreement states that the nations will lead by example by effectively protecting and conserving the same percentage of their national land, inland waters and coastal and marine areas by 2030.   

• A commitment to prioritize the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in co-design, decision-making and implementation of the systems change needed for the Nature Compact’s success.

• A pledge to dramatically increase investment in nature from all sources including the percentage of public climate finance directed towards nature.  

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Campaign for Nature

June 10, 2021

A new, peer-reviewed report by 50 climate and biodiversity experts released today asserts that biodiversity loss and climate change are both driven by human economic activities and mutually reinforce each other, and that neither will be successfully resolved unless both are tackled together. 

The report findings echo a recent communiqué by G7 leaders calling for greater and more coordinated climate and biodiversity action. 

Studies have shown that climate change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss and that ecosystems and species play a major function in regulating climate, as carbon sinks, as well as enhancing adaptation and resilience to climate change. 

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BusinessGreen

June 7, 2021
Listed companies in the world's richest economies will soon have to publish comprehensive reports detailing the climate-related risks they are facing, after finance ministers from the G7 group of nations backed plans for mandatory reporting requirements.

In a move that will bolster hopes next week's G7 Summit and this autumn's COP26 Climate Summit could deliver significant progress for international efforts to tackle the climate crisis, Ministers issued a communique this weekend confirming plans to require banks and companies to disclose their exposure to climate-related risks.

Meeting in London ahead of the upcoming G7 Summit in Cornwall, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors finalised a major new agreement to tackle international tax avoidance, which included renewed support for the climate risk reporting guidelines proposed by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) back in 2017.

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Campaign for Nature

May 21, 2021
Today, G7 Ministers responsible for Climate and Environment issued a sweeping communiqué laying out an urgent action plan for how to tackle the twin biodiversity and climate crises. 

In the communiqué, they assert their commitment to “conserving or protecting at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030  to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and address climate change.” They further urge that Indigenous Peoples, and local communities be included as “full partners in the implementation of this target.”

This historic call for greater and more coordinated climate and biodiversity action comes in the leadup to a meeting in Kunming, China this year, when delegates from 190 countries will agree on an action plan for ending the biodiversity crisis that can address the accelerating loss of species and protect the vital ecosystems that safeguard human health and economic security. 

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The Globe and Mail

March 31, 2021
The organizations that represent academic research within the Group of Seven nations have a message for world leaders: The same kind of scientific expertise that proved crucial to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic is also required to address a broader set of environmental and health challenges facing humanity.

In a joint communique released on Wednesday, science academies from each of the countries, including the Royal Society of Canada, call for urgent and co-ordinated action by their respective countries on three priority areas – climate change, biodiversity loss, and the need for better access to data during international health emergencies. 

Expert panels, convened over the past several months, have produced recommendations in all three of the priority areas, aimed at driving discussions in June at the next meeting of leaders from the G7 club of economically developed countries.

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