The seventy-eighth meeting of the CITES Standing Committee will consider cooperation with other multilateral environmental agreements, the transport of live specimens, specimens produced through biotechnology, and the role of CITES in reducing the risk of potential zoonotic disease emergence associated with international wildlife trade.

The nearly USD 700 million Work Program approved focuses heavily on chemicals and waste at a time when the GEF hopes to prove to the multilateral community it has the capacity to serve as the financial mechanism for a global plastics treaty and that it could play a significant role in realizing the vision of the Global Framework on Chemicals.

The Plenary launched the Nexus Assessment on the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food, and health, and the Transformative Change Assessment on underlying causes of biodiversity loss, determinants of transformative change, and options for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.