LIVING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE AT THE NATURE OF CITIES SUMMIT, JUNE 2019
ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center (CBC), the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework EU Support, Expertise France and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) co-convened a seed session at the University of Paris Sorbonne on Living in harmony with nature at The Nature of Cities Summit. This session took place on the afternoon of the first day, 4 June 2019.
The session aim was to refine the commitment framework for cities and sub-national governments on biodiversity in the post-2020 agenda of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) leading to key events at the CBD’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP), scheduled to take place in Kunming, China, in October 2020. The commitment by cities and subnational governments to contribute to the post-2020 agenda was made at CBD COP 14 in Sharm El-Sheikh in November 2018 and is reflected in the Sharm El-Sheikh Communique, which was adopted at the 6th Global Biodiversity Summit of Local and Subnational Governments held as official parallel event to CBD COP 14. The session was co-moderated by Ingrid Coetzee, Senior Programme Manager ICLEI CBC, Didier Babin, from Expertise France and Team Leader of the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework EU Support project, and Oliver Hillel from the SCBD.
The session profiled CitiesWithNature as the official platform for all cities, metropolitan areas, local and subnational governments to share and report on their commitments to the Sharm-el-Sheikh to Kunming Action Agenda for Nature and People and ambitions for the ‘new deal for nature’ which will be endorsed at CBD COP 15 in Kunming, China in October 2020. Key outcome of this session included the endorsement of CitiesWithNature as the official commitment platform for all cities, metropolitan areas, local and subnational governments; the identification of issues that should be addressed at the local and subnational levels in negotiating the ‘new deal for nature’; as well as a series of local and subnational events at which the post-2020 agenda can be promoted. Delegates attending the session agreed to a session statement on ‘Strengthening the momentum for a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’.