EU Green Week 2020: A New Beginning for People and Nature - UNEP Contributions

Never has there been a more pressing time to discuss our relationship with nature, as one million species are faced with extinction, our climate is in a crisis and our battle with COVID-19 is ongoing. Amid the pandemic, EU Green Week 2020 took place virtually around the theme of nature and biodiversity from 19 to 23 October.

Kicking off in Lisbon, this year’s European Green Capital, EU Green Week begun with a one-day hybrid conference on 19 October bringing together internationally renowned scientists, policymakers and more. Featured in the afternoon session focused on solutions for a biodiverse and equitable world, UN-REDD’s Mario Boccucci discussed reducing deforestation and forest degradation as a means of contributing to significant carbon removal and the creation of green jobs.

“Forests — with their significant carbon reduction and removal potential, health benefits, provision of livelihoods and food security for many rural poor and their potential to create an additional 80 million green jobs — are crucial for a sustainable, long-term global recovery.”- Mario Boccucci.

As the day drew to a close, speakers offered their final remarks, setting the tone for upcoming discussions organised for the week ahead. DG Environment’s Humberto D. Rosa, began by discussing David Attenborough’s vivid testimony of his extraordinary life in his new film, as well as the sad reality it depicts. 60% of wild vertebrate populations have now diminished, it is a catastrophe, he said. Despite this, his speech delivered a message of hope. Through the upcoming UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, he explained, the world and Europe can once again become wild.

Following this, Susan Gardner, UNEP’s Director of Ecosystems Division, highlighted the interlinkages between the biodiversity and climate crises. Through rebuilding our relationship with nature, and building back greener from COVID-19, we can address both challenges whilst avoiding future pandemics. She highlighted we are all part of the problem, and so we can all be a part of the solution, indicating that governments must pave the way for biodiversity to be valued by our economies. She determined the youth as key to holding governments accountable for the actions they take, or do no take. Her final remarks, like Humberto’s, envisioned hope, explaining that we have a window of great potential and the momentum to change. But to move away from business as usual, we must all do our part, and UNEP stands ready to support this work towards sustainability, Susan confirmed.

Amongst those closing the session, was Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. 10 years ago, parties to the CBD gathered in Nagoya and adopted 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets to be achieved by 2020. Elizabeth highlighted in her speech, as indicated in the recently launched Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, that none of these 20 targets have been achieved. As a result, we are not on track to achieve the 2050 vision towards living in harmony with nature. To prepare for the post-2020 biodiversity framework, Elizabeth explained we must recommit to the 2050 vision, and act now. She acknowledged the Leaders Pledge for Nature as a move in the right direction, as well as the Commission’s Biodiversity Strategy as a major contribution to the negotiations taking place in Kunming next year. She closed by welcoming the participants of EU Green Week to use the week as an opportunity to plan for the promises and commitments that have already been made and will be made in the months to come.

EU Green Week Virtual Brussels Conference  (20-22 October)

This 3 day virtual conference organised by the European Commission from 20-22 October 2020 brought together policymakers, scientists, representatives from business community, civil society, youth and media, aimed at exploring the contribution biodiversity can make to society and the economy, and what role it can play in supporting and stimulating recovery in a post-pandemic world.

This EU Green Week looked into biodiversity loss and the wider ecological crisis, into the lessons we can draw from the crisis, the contribution biodiversity can make to society and the economy, and what role can it play in supporting and stimulating recovery in a post-pandemic world. It was an opportunity to look at how the EU Green Deal and the new EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 can support this process.

UNEP experts participated in various thematic discussions, which we briefly summarised below.

Session 2.1. Zoonotic diseases, invasive alien species and wildlife trade

60% of all known infectious diseases and 75% of all emerging infectious diseases are thought to be zoonotic, stated Doreen Robinson, UNEP’s chief of wildlife, during a session on zoonotic diseases, invasive alien species and wildlife trade. The emergence of zoonotic diseases are most likely driven by 7 human-mediated factors, she added highlighting a recent UNEP report, this includes the increasing demand for animal protein and the increased use and exploitation of wildlife. Unfortunately, Doreen explained, these are also important factors of people’s lives; for example, wild meats are a critical source of protein for many communities and the wildlife trade supports both economies and livelihoods. These are complex systems with no simple solutions, she stated.

Doreen then highlighted three factors to address these complex systems: 1) bringing all tools and mechanisms together by looking across sectors and finding a common solution. She highlighted the One Health approach as an essential orientating framework to bring together a range of sectors, such as the One Health European Joint Programme (OHEJP) which unites medical, veterinary and environmental expertise; 2) supporting the implementation of existing legislative tools and frameworks; and 3) creating domestic and international legislation that are equally strong.

Ilaria Di Silvestre, Wildlife Programme Leader at Eurogroup for Animals suggested a different approach, explaining existing legislation is not fit for a pathway so dynamic. A cross-sectoral and comprehensive approach is needed she added, suggesting that at EU level this could come in the form of a positive list detailing species that are allowed to be kept by the general public.

In response, Doreen suggested positive lists are not always positive as they can drive an illegal trade of desired species, making monitoring much more difficult compared to the legal wildlife trade. To close the session, the audience participated in a poll asking if current regulations are fit for purpose, the final consensus was that some elements of existing mechanisms should be reinforced or improved. To improve existing mechanisms, Doreen finished by highlighting the importance of science and evidence-based policies.

Link to the recording: https://youtu.be/DS0SC8GLWVY

3.2 Nature Restoration: a win-win for Biodiversity and Nature

WWF’s Living Planet Report 2020 has revealed that two-thirds of the ocean and three-quarters of the land is degraded and there has been a 68% decline in species in the last 50 years. The EU Green Week session on restoring habitats highlighted the failures to protect biodiversity so far but looked to promote the win-win effect of restoring nature. According to Ester Asin, WWF wants a set square meter target of restored areas from both the EU and member states. But carbon storage by nature is not an alternative to reducing emissions. 

What is the key driver of biodiversity loss? Joy Kim of UNEP discussed the impact our agricultural practices are having on the environment. She highlighted the misaligned incentives and public expenditure in supporting agriculture. With over USD 600 billion/year in subsidies and other support, only 5% of this goes to conservation of any kind. UNEP has joined with FAO, UNDP, and others to create a report on global human and social health, to be released early next year. This report will set out specific guidance on how counties can repurpose subsidies to promote sustainable food systems.

Link to the recording https://youtu.be/SDkNEe0pL7Q

4.4. Protecting biodiversity and nature through a circular economy

Biodiversity has no voice, it cannot stand up and raise its voice, it protests by dying out and disappearing from the planet. According to Janez Potocnik of UNEP International Resource Panel, humans have crossed the planetary boundaries. We need to treat the disease, not only the symptoms. Resource extraction is a primary driver of biodiversity loss, addressing these key drivers creates multiple ‘co-benefits’ for other SDGs, including climate change, water preservation, and goals for productivity. Better transparency through value chains and across borders is needed.

The European Green Deal is the EU’s new growth strategy, that acknowledges that environmental and economic goals are not in contradiction and future economic development depends on how we will preserve and protect natural capital. Targets and commitments are the easy part according to Mr. Potocnik, implementation is now the main roadblock. The System Change Compass is a guide for implementing the European Green Deal at all levels. It aims to chart pathways towards prosperity and wellbeing within planetary boundaries.

Link to recording 

Session 4.2 The Ocean and COVID-19

The ocean and COVID-19 session began with a brief history of the connection between human health and the ocean. According to Dr. Mathew White of the University of Vienna, recent studies have shown the positive health and well-being benefits of blue spaces. Communities living near the coast are healthier, with effects strongest for lower-income groups. Yet poor quality or polluted blue spaces do not have the health-boosting effects. While the EU wants to protect unto 30% of European seas, 85% of the already protected areas are not managed, with some even allowing bottom trawling, despite over-fishing being the biggest driver of biodiversity loss in the marine environment.

Another driver of biodiversity loss in the oceans is pollution. According to Monika MacDevette from UNEP, our pollution has reached all parts of the ocean. The increased use of single-use plastic in the protective equipment we are using to fight COVID-19 increasing this pollution substantially. Furthermore, we do not currently know the effect of the huge volumes of disinfectant we are pouring into our waterways, which eventually flow out to sea. What is UNEP doing about this? In the effort to build back better, UNEP is coordinating help in creating long-term solutions, by promoting the evidence-based ‘source to sea approach’. This includes circularity in our economic practices, and nature-based solutions to improve both ecosystems and our health and well-being.

Link to recording 

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Biodiversity (But Were Afraid To Ask): Launching The ’Knowledge Centre For Biodiversity’ Part 1

In partnership with the JRC

The Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCB) was announced as part of the Biodiversity Strategy, and is a key element of the European Green Deal, as highlighted by Virginijus Sinkevičius, Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, and  Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth at the Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity launch.

During the launch, Giovanni De Santi, Director of Sustainable Resources at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), explained that delivering the Biodiversity Strategy will be a multi-dimensional challenge and to tackle this challenge the KCB will be the key instrument to support evidence-based policies. There are three priorities of the KCB, Giovanni indicated: 1) Track and assess progress of the Biodiversity Strategy; 2) Underpin policy development and policy coherence; and finally, 3) Foster cooperation and partnership with key international organisations and strengthen coordination. The KCB also has 2 interlinked dimensions: a dimension focused on the EU and a dimension focused on addressing global challenges.

Representing the Convention on Biological Diversity and the global dimension, Deputy Executive Secretary David Cooper participated in the launch. He began by re-iterating messages from Elizabeth Maruma Mrema’s closing remarks in Lisbon on the failure of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and explained that the post-2020 Biodiversity Framework will need to have goals and targets with the right level of scope and ambition to achieve the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature. Central to this he added, will be the tracking of progress towards commitments. Consequently, in the preparatory discussions for the framework, the parties have emphasized the importance of monitor and review. As data and science are key to better decision-making, the gap between decisionmakers and scientific communities must be closed; recent developments by the Commission are helping to achieve this, said David. The KCB will provide a regional hub for sharing information and monitoring progress, he continued, and will be important in moving ahead and supporting the post-2020 Framework.

Link to the recording

Session 5.2 The Power Of People: How Can We Live Better, Lighter And Closer To Nature?

Organised in cooperation with UNEP

According to Lewis Akenji, author of the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles report, Belgium needs to cut down its greenhouse gas emissions associated with lifestyles by 79% in the next ten years to be compatible with the 1.5 °C target, he explained in the session on how can we live better, lighter and closer to nature. And reductions are not only necessary for developed countries, developing countries will also have to reduce their emissions from lifestyles, he added highlighting issues of social justice and inequality.

Within the EU, citizens need to reduce their environmental footprint by one order of magnitude, indicated Serenella Sala, Deputy Head of Unit for the European Commission’s JRC. To enable EU citizens to better understand the impact of their individual lifestyles, she indicated that a Consumer Footprint Calculator will be launched by the Commission soon. Providing the evidence on how people can become engaged and motivated to change is essential in making sustainable behavioral changes the mainstream, added UNEP’s Sustainable Lifestyles Programme Officer Garrette Clark.

“Most people do not wake up intending to harm the environment - nor to help it. They make decisions based on price, accessibility, well-being or trends. Governments and companies should support business models that make sustainable living THE default option,” explained Garrette in the session. “There is no one sustainable lifestyle. We need actionable, positive, and global narratives about the world of tomorrow we want to see.”

Link to recording 

Session 7.2 Earth Observation To Protect The Planet And The People

In partnership with the JRC

New technologies allow better knowledge creation and a more accurate understanding of biodiversity loss. Earth observations, through services such as Copernicus, are the EU’s eyes on the earth. Yet according to Mike Harfoot of UNEP, these observations can only see structural aspects, not whole ecological systems. Tree cover does not equal biodiversity. However, earth observations are good at understanding the key drivers of biodiversity loss. 

UNEP and Global Forest Watch are working together to monitor these key drivers. Often these observations are default data and the starting point for international policy dialogue. Yet challenges remain. The volumes of data cause a capacity shortfall, despite the open and transparentness of the data. Furthermore, many countries will only accept information from their scientists. The future, according to Mr. Harfoot, will require investment in collaboration between scientists, decision-makers, and practitioners. The potential is near-real-time monitoring of biodiversity to ensure we stay on track with targets.

Link to recording

Closing session: On the road to Kunming

Europe is nowhere near its 2020 biodiversity goals, according to the State of Nature report launched at EU Green Week. The report was described as alarming during the closing session by Florika Fink-Hooijer Director-General, Directorate General for Environment. Despite this, Virginijus Sinkevičius displayed ambition that Europe can, and will, move away from business as usual through the implementation of its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, encompassed within the European Green Deal.

Globally, the world also failed to meet any of the Aichi Biodiversity targets, highlighted by Jochen Flasbarth, Germany’s State Secretary at the Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. It is clear that political leaders have failed to take biodiversity loss seriously till now. But why? Because we have unvalued it, responded UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen. We have taxed the goods but not the bad, she expanded, destroying nature has cost us nothing, except our future and the future of our children. “We can't just put up a fence around nature and consider the job done. We must address the drivers of biodiversity loss and take a whole-of-society approach,” Inger added. And this means addressing all fundamental drivers of biodiversity loss, including agricultural and fisheries subsidies she highlighted, as the CAP reform was unfolding. In addition, Inger expressed the importance of recovery funds with green strings attached, as a short-term priority for action.

 “Post COVID-19 stimulus packages must ensure we leave a sustainable planet for future generations.” – Inger Andersen.

She also encouraged citizens to become aware of their own footprints; get involved in your own schools, companies, neighborhoods, and gardens, she suggested to the audience. Take this issue to the voting box and hold local and national politicians accountable, she continued.

Europe has raised the bar for Kunming, Inger concluded, and an ambitious agreement can be implemented within the whole-of-society from 2021. As a final remark Virginijus Sinkevičius added that now is the time for action, and action should be stepped up to protect and restore ecosystems. Timely, as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration kicks off next year.

Link to the recording

"Strong front runners are essential if we are to arrive at an ambitious, meaningful and high-impact post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework that ends biodiversity loss once and for all. The EU Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies demonstrate important leadership on protecting and restoring biodiversity. Let us bring the ambition and ideas we have seen here at EU Green Week to Kunming, and secure healthy biodiversity for generations to come."

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the closing session.

EU Green Week Media programme

UNEP cooperated with the European Commission in the context of a media programme taking place in the margins of the EU Green Week conferences. 

This consisted of 2 media briefings and a virtual report launch.  

The online media programme aimed at equiping journalists with insights into key policy developments on biodiversity, as well as into next year’s Convention on Biological Diversity’s fifteenth Conference of the Parties – both of which will be key to healing the planet’s web of life.  

UNEP launched the report on the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean, and convened a Briefing session about: 'Biodiversity on the international agenda'

21 October 2020 - Launch of the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean: 

• Key speakers: Gaetano Leone, Coordinator, Mediterranean Action Plan-Barcelona Convention Secretariat and François Guerquin, Plan Bleu Director. 

Despite representing less than 1% of the world’s ocean surface, the Mediterranean Sea is home to up to 18% of the planet’s marine species. The decline of Posidonia Oceanica (an endemic seagrass species known as the “lungs of the Mediterranean”), overfishing, non-indigenous species are among the symptoms of environmental degradation. Marine and coastal ecosystems are reeling under pressure from the unsustainable pursuit of economic growth. This pressure is illustrated by the challenges of marine litter, and pollution, and further compounded by the rising impacts of climate change. A United Nations Environment Programme Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP) report produced by Plan Bleu, a UNEP/MAP Regional Activity Centre, provides the most comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment and development in the region and includes a set of key messages that can inform an adequate policy response. The report was prepared under the Barcelona Convention, the Contracting Parties of which are 21 Mediterranean countries and the European Union.   

 

21 October 2020 - Briefing: Biodiversity on the international agenda 

• Key speakers: Humberto Delgado Rosa, Director for Natural Capital, DG Environment, European Commission; Carla Montesi, Director Planet and Prosperity DG for International Cooperation and Development, European Commission; Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat (video message); Susan Gardner, Director, Ecosystems Division; Eric Usher, Head of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative. 

2021 will be a critical year for biodiversity with key international meetings that will set the agenda for the decade ahead, including the 5th session of the UN Environment Assembly, UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) and other multilateral agreements on climate change and pollution. It will also mark the start of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to mobilise unprecedented actions to restore critical ecosystems all across the planet.  

The session provided insights into the current state of play of negotiations towards a new global biodiversity framework post 2020, and explored actions as exemplified by the European Green Deal, at international level to address the drivers of biodiversity loss and deliver systemic shifts. The emphasis was on actions that put nature at the heart of post-pandemic recovery, with specific attention to unlocking the financing.

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