NAIROBI, Kenya — A week of United Nations biodiversity negotiations in Nairobi has concluded with the adoption of scientific and technical recommendations that will shape deliberations at this year’s UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17), even as a new global assessment warns the world remains off track to meet most of its 2030 biodiversity commitments.
The 28th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-28), which ended on August 1 at the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), approved a package of recommendations that will now be forwarded to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of the Parties (COP17), scheduled for October in Yerevan, Armenia.
The recommendations are expected to guide negotiations on accelerating implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), the landmark agreement adopted in 2022 to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss by 2030.
Unlike COP meetings, which make political decisions, SBSTTA serves as the CBD’s scientific advisory body. While its recommendations are not legally binding, they provide the scientific evidence and technical guidance that inform negotiations among governments.
A key focus of this year’s meeting was the first global review of progress towards implementing the framework’s 23 targets.
According to the assessment, although many countries have strengthened biodiversity planning and reporting, implementation remains uneven and insufficient to achieve most of the agreed 2030 goals without significant policy, financing and institutional reforms.
During six days of negotiations, delegates developed recommendations on several priority issues expected to dominate discussions at COP17, including the global review of implementation, marine and coastal biodiversity conservation, sustainable wildlife management and updates to the Programme of Work on Protected Areas.
Negotiators also considered the use of the latest scientific assessments produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), alongside new technical guidance aimed at improving biodiversity monitoring, reporting and implementation.
The meeting further explored how science can better support countries as they revise and implement their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) under the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Several recommendations are intended to improve measurement of progress towards the framework’s headline targets, including protecting at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, restoring degraded ecosystems, reducing pollution, tackling invasive alien species and significantly increasing biodiversity financing.
However, negotiations over synthetic biology emerged among the most contentious issues during the session.
Delegations differed on whether existing international governance arrangements are adequate to manage environmental risks associated with rapidly advancing genetic technologies or whether additional oversight mechanisms are required.
Developing countries also pressed for stronger commitments on technology transfer, capacity building and equitable sharing of benefits arising from emerging biotechnologies.
Unable to reach consensus, delegates agreed to defer several unresolved issues for further consideration during the seventh meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-7) before they are ultimately considered by ministers at COP17.
The debate highlighted broader challenges facing global biodiversity governance, with scientific innovation advancing faster than international regulatory frameworks.
For African countries, the Nairobi negotiations reinforced longstanding concerns that success will depend less on negotiating new global targets than on mobilising sufficient resources to implement those already agreed.
Many African nations host globally significant biodiversity hotspots while simultaneously facing debt burdens, competing development priorities and limited domestic conservation financing.
African negotiators have consistently argued that implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework will require increased international financial support, expanded access to technology and stronger institutional capacity.
Attention now shifts to SBI-7, which opens in Nairobi this week to examine biodiversity finance, resource mobilisation, implementation mechanisms, digital sequence information, communication strategies and national implementation progress before forwarding additional recommendations to COP17.
With only four years remaining before the 2030 deadline, the conference in Yerevan is widely expected to serve as the first major political assessment of whether governments are translating international biodiversity commitments into measurable conservation outcomes.
The scientific recommendations adopted in Nairobi are expected to provide the foundation for negotiations on biodiversity finance, protected areas, ecosystem restoration, wildlife management, scientific cooperation and emerging technologies as countries seek to close the widening gap between global ambition and implementation.
