To highlight the urgency of action at the highest levels in support of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the President of the United Nations General Assembly will convene a Summit on Biodiversity at UN Headquarters in New York on the margins of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly from September 22 to 23, 2020.
The Summit on Biodiversity, which seeks to provide political direction and momentum to the development of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, will meet under the theme “Urgent Action on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development.” The meeting will consist of an opening segment, a plenary segment for general discussion, two Leaders’ Dialogues and a closing segment.
The Leaders’ Dialogues will be held under the following themes: “Addressing biodiversity loss and mainstreaming biodiversity for sustainable development” (Dialogue 1) and “Harnessing science, technology and innovation, capacity-building, access and benefit-sharing, financing and partnerships for biodiversity” (Dialogue 2).
The Summit, according to the UN, provides an opportunity to demonstrate ambition to accelerate action on biodiversity for sustainable development, and thereby give momentum to the development and eventual adoption of an effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15).
“The post-2020 global biodiversity framework is meant to be ambitious, not only in the goals and targets set, but also in providing the means, financial and otherwise, to achieve those goals, and in the mechanisms put in place to review progress,” said the CBD.
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), together with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has been invited by the President of the General Assembly to assist in the preparation of the Summit.
