Beijing Call for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Change

1. Recalling the commitments of the French Republic and the People’s Republic of China made in the 2019 March 25th Joint statement on preserving multilateralism and improving global governance and the two trilateral press statements on climate change with the Secretary General of the United Nations on the margins of the G20 Summit in Osaka and G20 summit in Buenos Aires;

- Recalling the objectives, principles and commitments of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as the three Rio Conventions: United Nations Convention on biological diversity, United Nations Convention to combat desertification, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and its Doha Amendment, and the Paris Agreement, welcoming the outcomes of the United Nations Climate Action Summit that emphasize the stakes of climate change and biodiversity loss;

- Reaffirming their strong commitments to enhance international cooperation on climate change to ensure full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement guided by the principles of UNFCCC, including the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, uphold multilateralism and inject political impetus into the international cooperation on jointly fighting climate change, to jointly promote international relations based on mutual respect, fairness, justice, and mutually beneficial cooperation;

- Reiterating their firm support for the Paris Agreement, which they regard as an irreversible process and a yardstick for strong action on the climate;

- Reaffirming our G20 joint commitment on medium term rationalization and phasing-out of Inefficient Fossil Fuel Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, while providing targeted support for the poorest;

- Emphasizing that trade agreements should be consistent with the objectives of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

- Recalling that biodiversity loss and climate change threaten global peace and stability food security, sustainable development and human health, and are closely intertwined with the state of the oceans, forests and land degradation, and underlining the importance of sustainably managing tropical forests, which are carbon sinks and global biodiversity hotspots;

- Welcoming the publication of the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and of two special reports on land and ocean and cryosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and recognizing the need to promote and perform transformational changes to reduce the main drivers of biodiversity loss: inter alia changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasion of alien species;

- Committed to working together on the link between climate change and biodiversity, determined to support and work together with other political leaders to prompt a global and effective response to climate change and biodiversity loss in the COP15 of CBD to be held in Kunming, China, in 2020;
 

2. Resolute to make unprecedented efforts to secure the future of the generations, and to step up the global efforts to tackle climate change and to speed up transition towards green and low-carbon and climate-resilient development, we, the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, meeting in Beijing on 6 November 2019 call on all countries and, when relevant, sub-national authorities, companies, NGOs and citizens to:

- Welcome the international initiatives to fight against climate change and to halt the biodiversity loss;

- Communicate or update their nationally determined contributions in a manner representing a progression beyond the current one and reflecting their highest possible ambition, and to publish their mid-century long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies by 2020 in the context of sustainable development;

- Ratify, as soon as possible, and implement the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, recognizing that the Kigali Amendment could prevent up to 0.4c of warming by the end of century, and that coordinated efforts to improve the energy efficiency of air conditioners and other cooling equipment will have additional environmental benefits, including the reduction of emissions, public health and food security, and undertake action to improve energy efficiency in the cooling sector globally;

- Value, conserve, restore and wisely use biodiversity, to encourage the engagement of all actors and stakeholders and to support the development and implementation of an ambitious and realistic post- 2020 global biodiversity framework;

- Encourage concrete and ascertainable commitments and contributions to biodiversity conservation from actors and stakeholders across all sectors to stimulate and support government action in the promotion of a robust post 2020 global biodiversity framework in the frame of the Sharm El-Sheikh to Kunming Action Agenda for Nature and People;

- Join forces in the run-up to the IUCN World Conservation Congress (June 2020, Marseille) in order to conclude with ambitious and realistic outcomes to inform the preparation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework;

- Promote active engagement of political leaders at the highest level in advocacy for biodiversity at CBD COP15 with the theme : “Ecological Civilization-Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth”, in order to realize the vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050 and to define and adopt an ambitious and realistic post-2020 global biodiversity framework building on the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the lessons learned from the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and addressing main drivers of loss of biodiversity;

- Work together to define milestones in order to bend the curve of biodiversity loss by 2030, by protecting an ever growing part of the planet, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services;

- Capitalize on the Nature-Based Solutions Coalition co-lead by China and leverage Nature-Based Solutions to coherently address biodiversity loss, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and land and ecosystems degradation. Recognize that Nature-Based Solutions an essential component of the overall global effort to achieve the goals of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and to reach the SDGs by supporting vital ecosystem services, biodiversity, access to fresh water, improved livelihood, healthy diets and food security from sustainable food systems;

- Commit, in the perspective of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, to take appropriate and ambitious actions to halt and reverse the degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biodiversity loss, and restoring at least 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems that are restorable thereby contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, protection of biodiversity, combatting desertification and land degradation, and food security;

- Fight environmental crime, in particular smuggling and trafficking of endangered species of flora and fauna and derived products, as well as illegal transboundary movements of solid waste, by banning the illegal entry and exit of these objects across borders;

- Protect all important ecosystems, including mountain, aquatic, forest, grassland, as biodiversity hotspots, and also considering their role in addressing and tackling climate change, and lower our respective footprint on forests, especially the impact of agriculture and forestry;

- Mobilize all States towards an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention or the law of the sea for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (“BBNJ”);

- Address marine litter, especially marine plastic litter and microplastics and to swiftly take appropriate national actions for the prevention and significant reduction of discharges of plastic litter and microplastics to the oceans;

- Promote the conservation and restoration of marine ecosystem;

- Promote the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources in accordance with the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, and continue discussions on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in the Antarctic, including by establishing a marine protected area there;

- Fulfill the commitments by developed countries to provide and mobilize US$100 billion each year for climate finance by 2020 and to set a new collective quantified goal from a floor of US$100 billion per year by 2025, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries. In this regard, the Green Climate Fund plays a key role as one of the tools to mobilize more financial resources towards low-carbon and resilient investments in developing countries;

- Urge public, domestic and international development finance institutions, and their collaborative networks, such as the International Development Finance Club (IDFC), to consider both the positive and negative impacts on climate and biodiversity related to their financing, in line with the UNFCCC, the Paris agreement and the convention on biological diversity objectives;

- Mobilize additional resources from all sources, both public and private, at the domestic and at the international level, towards both climate adaptation and mitigation; make finance flows consistent with pathways towards low greenhouse emissions and climate-resilient development, as well as for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, the conservation of oceans, land degradation amongst others; ensure that international financing, particularly in the infrastructure field, is compatible with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris climate agreement.