Geneva, Switzerland
April 18, 2011
Biodiversity and climate change issues are coming together under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), according to a new working paper from the University of Edinburgh.
The CBD is engaged in questions relating to climate change, it found. In particular, the CBD has progressively addressed legal and policy implications of the impacts on biodiversity of climate change, as well as mitigation and adaptation measures.
The author, Elisa Morgera, a lecturer in European environmental law at the University of Edinburgh School of Law, analysed the links between biodiversity loss and climate change, and reviewed the main climate change-related outcomes of the 10th CBD Conference of the Parties (COP), in October 2010.
According to Morgera, the CBD “has been steadily working on climate-change-related issues since its seventh meeting in 2004.” At COP 10, delegates agreed on increased cooperation between the CBD and the international climate change regime, in particular with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
However, “the ultimate value of the developments under the CBD related to climate change rests with the systematic application at all levels of environmental governance of its guidelines aimed at ensuring that climate change measures are environmentally, socially, and culturally sustainable,” the paper said.
Faraway, So Close: A Legal Analysis of the Increasing Interactions between the Convention on Biological Diversity and Climate Change Law
Elisa Morgera
University of Edinburgh
February 2, 2011
University of Edinburgh School of Law Working Paper No. 2011/05
Abstract:
The legal and policy implications of the impacts on biodiversity of climate change, as well as of mitigation and adaptation measures, have been progressively addressed by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This process experienced a steep acceleration at the tenth meeting of the CBD Conference of the Parties (COP X - 18-29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan) that resulted in a host of unprecedented and far-reaching decisions related to climate change. This article will first discuss the increasing understanding of the links between global biodiversity loss and climate change, and then review the main climate change-related outcomes of the CBD COP X. It will conclude by discussing the legal relevance of this significant rapprochement of international biodiversity law to climate change law.
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