The UK has belatedly published its plan for how it will “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss this decade, as nations gather in Rome for resumed COP16 talks.
As anticipated, the plan sees the UK commit to implementing a lengthy list of global targets within its borders, including protecting 30% of its land and seas, plus restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems, by 2030.
It is the last G7 nation to release its national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP) – excluding the US, which is not a party to the UN biodiversity convention.
The plan comes four months after the UN deadline, which was for countries to submit plans by the start of the COP16 summit in Colombia in October.
As analysis by Carbon Brief and the Guardian revealed at the time, the UK was among 85% of nations to miss the due date.
As of 26 February, three-quarters of countries are yet to publish their NBSAPs, including the world’s most biodiverse nation, Brazil, and COP17 host Armenia.
Catching up
At COP15 in 2022, nations signed a landmark agreement called the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which aims to “halt and reverse” nature loss by 2030. It is often described as the “Paris Agreement for nature”.
As part of the framework, countries agreed to submit new NBSAPs by COP16 in October 2024.
NBSAPs are blueprints for how individual countries plan to tackle biodiversity loss within their borders. The latest round of NBSAPs should also include information on how countries will meet the targets of the GBF.
They are similar to nationally determined contributions (NDCs), plans that outline how individual countries envisage meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. However, a key difference is that countries are legally obliged to submit NDCs, but not NBSAPs.
Carbon Brief and Guardian analysis released shortly before COP16 in October 2024 showed that just 25 countries and the EU had met the deadline to submit an updated NBSAP ahead of the conference.
Since then, a further 21 countries have released NBSAPs, including COP16 host Colombia. The UK releasing its plan brings the total to 47 – meaning three-quarters of countries have still not submitted NBSAPs.
Countries that were unable to meet the deadline to submit NBSAPs ahead of COP16 were requested to instead submit national targets. These submissions list biodiversity targets that countries will aim for – without an accompanying plan for how they will be achieved.
As of 26 February, 125 parties had submitted national targets.
UK ‘leadership’
Back in October, Carbon Brief reported that the UK was among countries to miss the UN deadline for submitting an NBSAP.
UK officials blamed a series of political changes for delay, including a change of power in Scotland in May 2024 and a general election ushering in a new Labour government in July.
In a press briefing on Friday 21 February, a UK official said the government was waiting for the release of Labour’s new Environment Improvement Plan, which is scheduled for later this year, before releasing its NBSAP.
However, after negotiating alongside other countries at the resumed talks of COP16 in Rome on Tuesday, the government reversed this and decided to publish its NBSAP immediately.
(Countries have gathered again in Rome for another session of COP16 after negotiators failed to reach agreement on a long list of issues in Colombia.)
The UK is seeking to play a leadership role at the Rome talks. It has been lobbying for other nations to come forward with new NBSAPs – making its status as the last G7 nation to submit one increasingly uncomfortable.
Ahead of publishing its NBSAP, the UK had already submitted national targets to the UN.
In its national targets submission, the UK committed to meeting the 23 targets of the GBF within its borders, ranging from protecting 30% of its land and seas through to reducing the overall risk from pesticides by half by 2030.
As anticipated, the annex of the UK’s NBSAP repeats these commitments. The annex is accompanied by a “blueprint” document outlining the policies the UK is putting in place to try to meet its targets.
The post UK belatedly publishes nature pledge at COP16 in Rome as it seeks ‘leadership role’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK belatedly publishes nature pledge at COP16 in Rome as it seeks ‘leadership role’
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
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Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs