COP16: High Level Segment

I was fortunate enough to have received an exclusive access pass to the opening plenary on the first of two days of the High Level Segment, where heads of state, environment ministers, and the Secretary General of the United Nations are given the opportunity to address the media and the participants of COP16. The beginning of the High Level Segment is meant to be the catalyst to drive the negotiation process along, with only a few days left of the Conference for Parties, to reach a consensus decision document on any number of items.

The session opened with a rousing speech by Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, who has been the focus of very mixed opinions for his role as the head of the host country. Unlike some heads and ministers who used their time to give platitudes that made those in the room wonder if they had been following the negotiations at all, President Petro used his platform to make some very pointed remarks. He began by recognizing that the High Level Segment is the most political segment of the event and wants to address very political issues. He lamented the lack of action, which is the greatest problem faced by humanity. This is the era of human extinction, worse than the apocalypse. President Petro said that Colombia is the capital of biodiversity, tremendous in terms of human diversity, and is currently in the process of building a fairer and more tolerant society. However, he stressed the existence of a democratic deficit, for both Colombia and for COP. "We meet where nobody goes, because we want to make decisions for humanity where there is no humanity. This is not democracy." In one sentence on making decisions about humanity, "surrounded by sand, surrounded by snow, surrounded by mountains, away from humanity," he called out previous COP hosts, Dubai, Kunming, Montréal and the upcoming COP29 host, Baku.

Next, President Petro turned to the subject of greed. "Greed is determining what is being done about climate or biodiversity crisis, which is nothing more than the death of humanity. Greed has a way of producing that maximizes the destruction of the planet or of life. Another way of producing is needed." He denounced taxing carbon, saying that "every human will die thinking the market will save us, simply allowing the market to play." He asked if the dollar is worth more than life, and answered that Gaza shows us everyday that it is, because they can drop million dollar bombs on children every day. "The riskiest countries in the world are the ones who emits the most CO2, the wealthiest, the owners of Twitter and the media, the masters of politics and the global centres of power, they are the ones killing us, they are the ones killing the children, the ones that don't care about the Global South….What destroyed the environment if not for capitalism and greed?"

The Secretary of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, spoke next, highlighting the importance of biodiversity as humanity's ally and how we must make peace with nature rather than trying to destroy it. The Secretary General also used his platform to recognize peoples of African descent, which has been a contentious issue at COP16, as the group fought for recognition in Article 8j, along with Indigenous peoples and local communities. By recognizing peoples of African descent along with this same group, the Secretary General was inherently giving his support of the adoption of the proposal to Article 8j.

Secretary General Guterres advocated bold commitments to the Kunming-Montreal Global Diversity Framework (KMGBF), with robust reporting, implementation, and action at the national level. Parties must have clear National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and must shift to nature-positive businesses, circular economy, and sustainable farming practices. He then gave implicit support to the forming of a permanent subsidiary body for Indigenous peoples, peoples of African-descent, and local communities, a proposal that at that point had yet to be approved, saying that these groups must be a part of every conversation.

The President of Armenia used his platform to sell his country as the host of COP17, for which they had made a bid, while David Choquehuanca, the Vice-President of Bolivia, lamented "anthropocentric radicalization with artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, instead of opening our minds and hearts to nature." He insisted that technology is moving us away from being connected with the earth, which represents a serious threat to biodiversity. Finally, Susanna Muhammad, Colombia's Environment Minister and the President of COP16, reminded us that biodiversity is not just an issue for conservation but should be at the heart of all public policy. With those words, she declared open the High Level Segment of COP16.