16 November was Biodiversity Day at COP27, and headline news was the arrival of Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) at the summit. In his speech, President-elect Lula said that climate change will have the highest profile in his government, and that he will prioritize efforts to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
In a separate statement the architects of the Paris Agreement urged leaders to step up action to address the accelerating loss of nature by delivering an ambitious and transformative global biodiversity agreement at COP15, with the necessary finance and technical support to drive immediate action on the ground.
The theme of Biodiversity Day echoes an event from Finance Day, which took place during the first week of the international climate summit. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) issued the world's first guidance to help investors, financiers, companies, and governments identify investments that protect and rehabilitate biodiversity and ecosystems. The Biodiversity Finance Reference Guide is a market framework for biodiversity finance, a fast-growing domain of green finance that aims to support activities that conserve and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services. The guide was described by Makhtar Diop, IFC's Managing Director as “a compass for businesses and investors seeking to align their activities with the goals of sustainable growth and a healthy planet.”
Look beyond COP27, the impacts of climate change on biodiversity is also the topic of another COP, COP15 Part 2, on 7-19 December. At this COP – officially titled Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – the parties will review the achievement and delivery of the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.
Did you know about…biodiversity and accounting for nature?
Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth on which our societies and economies depend on it. It is rapidly rising up the corporate agenda as more and more companies understand the need to protect it.
Every business relies on biodiversity, which, for businesses, means everything from clean air and water, fuel, food, raw materials, minerals, fibers, pollination of crops, climate regulation for a stable climate, and much more. For example, agribusiness relies on the diversity of wild relatives of major food crops, as a resource to ensure crop resistance to disease and pests.
Business also rely on biodiversity for the wellbeing of their staff, their consumers, in their own operations and along their supply chains.
Biodiversity is increasing in importance to business, and businesses will be expected to know about biodiversity action and to engage with it. They are also coming under increasing pressure to support protection of biodiversity.
Biodiversity and Chartered Accountants Ireland
On March 3, 2022, Chartered Accountants Ireland joined a profession-wide commitment to reverse nature loss. Working together as part of the Global Accounting Alliance (GAA), the CEOs of 10 of the world’s leading accountancy institutes signed the call to action ‘Nature is Everyone’s Business’ to signal the important role the profession plays in this crisis.
You can find out more about biodiversity and natural capital and resources for accountants at the Chartered Accountants Ireland website’s Biodiversity - Accounting for Nature
You can find all our COP27 updates, information, guidance and supports to help members understand sustainability and meet the challenges it presents in our online Sustainability Centre.
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