Highlights and images for 20 October 2024

“Peace with Nature,” the theme of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), reflects the need to rethink our relationship with nature, to imagine an economic model that is not based on inequality, extraction, and overexploitation. This is the main message of the Colombian Presidency of CBD COP 16. 

The opening ceremony began with a welcome by Indigenous Peoples’ representatives, who invited delegates to “deliberate together as people who are dependent on and inhabitants of the Earth.”  

A performance ensued, which featured dances and songs evoking Colombia’s biocultural diversity, and affirmed interlinkages and interdependencies between humanity, peace, and nature.

Decrying the accumulation of capital and wealth in the 1% of the global population, violence and wars, fossil fuel-intensive economies, and energy-intensive technologies such as artificial intelligence, which threaten the balance necessary for existence, Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, called for a “global revolution” for humanity and life. Pathways toward this revolution require decarbonization, different economic and financial arrangements, and reducing inequitable debt through “debt for climate action,” he said.  

In a video message, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that destroying nature increases conflicts and social inequities, and leads to climate change and cultural heritage loss. Underscoring the promise of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to reset the relationship between nature and humans, he urged delegates to operationalize the multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources, and mobilize the financial resources needed to implement the GBF.  

COP 15 President Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment of China, noted the COP 16 theme of peace with nature aligns with that of COP 15, “ecological civilization.” Highlighting the launch of the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, he invited COP 16 delegates to work together to advance an effective, inclusive, and sustainable GBF.  

“The way forward is not through war but through working with the other,” Susana Muhamad, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Colombia, stressed. Achieving peace with nature requires more than implementation mechanisms, she said. It requires a conceptual change towards a model of development that does not view nature as a resource but as the fiber of life. Drawing attention to the interlinkages between the climate and biodiversity crises, she stressed that decarbonization and recovery of nature need to happen at the same time. 

Dilian Francisca Toro, Governor of Valle del Cauca, highlighted the region’s rich biological and cultural diversity, underlining that this wealth of diversity entails the responsibility of all facets of government and society. 

Álvaro Alejandro Eder Garcés, Mayor of Cali, foregrounded COP 16 as the “COP of reconciliation,” calling upon delegates to replace messages of hate and division with ones of unity and of working together for social justice, well-being, and harmony with nature.  

The opening ceremony was followed by a concert and a reception.