Blog post
COP16: Has the Passion for Nature been Relocated?
Roald Nooijens is Junior Researcher Biodiversity, Forest and Policy and his research focuses on the relationship between political communities and emotions, such as hope and fear for the future. He attended the UN biodiversity summit COP16 in Colombia and describes his findings.
After two years of celebrating the political ambition reflected in the 23 targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), political willingness is put to the test. COP16, held in Cali, Colombia, was supposed to translate ambition into actions. However, two days before negotiations ended the atmosphere in the tropical conference gardens turned bleak. Negotiations progressed slowly, diplomats walked around in frustration, and environmentalist asked themselves: where is the ambition for nature?
Hope and disappointment
COP15, held in 2022, was a conference of hope. The GBF set unpreceded political ambitions. Hopeful narratives of change in the way humanity deals with nature painted collective imaginaries of a future of ‘harmony with nature’, ’30 by 30’ and ‘nature positive’. The novel narratives provided anchor points for shared emotions, allowing the participants of COP15 to experience themselves as a community with their eyes sets on the greener horizon. The GBF is truly an unicum and has put biodiversity on the agenda of many institutes.
Those expecting the same collective hope in COP16’s Blue Zone, as the conference space where negotiations and side-events took place was named, could find themselves disappointed. Implementing imagination appears to be hard. The financial commitments being made by governments are just enough to compensate 15% of Brazil’s annual deforestation. The private sector mobilized significantly more money labelled as contributing to biodiversity, but not nearly enough. Delegates’ discussions turned a blind eye to both nature’s beauty and its horrific deterioration and instead focused on technical mechanisms to divide the scarce amount of money available. The ideological promise of a Nature Positive economy now resembles forgotten trash.
COP of the People
Those who think that passion for nature has left UN’s political stage are wrong as well. A parallel event took place in the Green Zone, in Cali’s city center. A COP of the People, as the Colombian presidency calls it. In contrast to the diplomatic Blue Zone, its Green counterpart displayed artworks on nature’s beauty and death, local nature-based products, audiovisual experiences, informative stands and music made by local people. The Green Zone was crowded with enthusiastic people from Cali and beyond. Delegates visiting the Green Zone expressed similar enthusiasm.
The Green Zone shows that the socio-cultural dimension of a political event plays a crucial role for generating positive political emotions. Indeed, at COP15 more artworks and cultural elements were found in the diplomatic zone. By reallocating the emotional elements, the passion for nature may have been relocated away from negotiations as well. Left was the realization of COP16 being the largest COP so far, by many mentioned as providing them hope. Perhaps, COP17 should allow delegates more time for experiencing nature and culture. Then delegates may have time to join the formally organized walk through local nature, which was now visited by just a handful of the 23.000 Blue Zone participants. Reminding them for which beauty the hard work is done in the first place, again putting passion for nature on the table.
