The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has called on governments to agree on a robust and workable multilateral benefit-sharing mechanism to advance biodiversity conservation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP16 in Cali, Colombia.
With nearly one million species at risk of extinction according to the 2019 Global Assessment Report, global biodiversity is severely at risk. At COP15 in 2022, world leaders agreed on a goal of living in harmony with nature by 2050 and adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to help achieve that vision. This year’s COP 16 will review progress on the GBF and decide how to monitor and fund its implementation.
With regard to the latter, governments are also expected to determine the design of a multilateral mechanism for the sharing of benefits from the use of “digital sequence information”.
Daphne Yong D’Herve, Director of Global Network
Policy Engagement at ICC said :
“Businesses are ready to engage fully at COP16, as they can and must be a key part of the solution to halting biodiversity loss. A benefit sharing mechanism with a broad contributor base would help ensure a meaningful stream of funds, help raise awareness of the principle of benefit sharing, and encourage a sense of collective responsibility among all sectors benefiting from biodiversity.”
Ahead of the start of the conference, ICC has outlined key elements of any new multilateral deal on benefit sharing – calling for a workable mechanism that provides legal certainty to businesses through innovation and commercialisation processes. The business organisation has also emphasized the imperative to ensure that any new mechanism:
- incentivises participation by both countries and a broad base of private sector contributors;
- ensures contributions collected are used to fund biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, including supporting the role of indigenous peoples and local communities as stewards of biodiversity;
- support research and innovation by providing open access to data; and
- recognise that tracking and tracing through value chains is not practical.
Ms. Yong D’Herve added :
“Business continues to engage at COP16 and beyond, in the further work needed to build a workable mechanism which could provide legal certainty and have the broadest possible engagement from countries, rightsholders and stakeholders.”
Find out more about the Business Views on a multilateral benefit sharing mechanism.
