Harnessing Ecosystem-based Adaptation to drive progress on implementing the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework 

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Introduction

Nature is not just a bystander in the face of our planet’s greatest challenges; it’s a powerful ally in our fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, and increasing social inequalities — offering effective, equitable and sustainable solutions for current and future generations.

In recent years, there has been a rising call across the Rio Conventions for the alignment of climate and biodiversity action in order to foster synergies, integration and coherence in the planning and implementation of national climate, biodiversity and land restoration plans and strategies. In the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Targets 8 and 11 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) are a call for governments and society to link biodiversity and climate action, by both minimizing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and by restoring, maintaining and enhancing nature’s contributions to people, including to increase people’s climate resilience.

How countries turn this mandate into action on the ground is now in the hands of national policymakers to co-design solutions with the most impacted communities. In 2024, the convergence of the meetings of the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Rio Conventions presents a pivotal moment for generating global action, and an opportunity for Parties to act on the connections between biodiversity conservation, addressing climate change, and land stewardship.

This report offers consolidated evidence, guidance and case studies on Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) from the Friends of Ecosystem-based Adaptation (FEBA) network to support the uptake of EbA across national strategies and plans for all three Rio Conventions, and to inform the development of revised national biodiversity and climate commitments. While the primary focus of this report is on the CBD and UNFCCC, it also highlights links to other global frameworks, including the UNCCD and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, and the need for greater coherence across these.

Nature, Climate Change and Ecosystem-based Adaptation

The interlinkages of biodiversity and climate change are a two-way relationship:

• Ecosystem loss and degradation releases enormous volumes of greenhouse gases, reduces the ability of ecosystems to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and exacerbates the impact of climate hazards, influencing changing temperatures, precipitation patterns, freshwater availability, and resulting in climate hazards such as stronger storms, more frequent and intense droughts, extreme heat, erratic rainfall, and rising sea levels. Ecosystem loss and degradation also increases society’s vulnerability and impacts the livelihoods of communities.
• In turn, the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity offers incredible potential to support people in both mitigating and adapting to climate change. Healthy ecosystems have the potential to save up to 10GT of CO2 per year through avoided emissions and enhancement of carbon sinks – more than the emissions from the entire global transportation sector- as well as the potential to reduce the intensity of climate hazards by 26 percent, with potential cost savings from climate change impacts of USD 104 billion by 2030 and USD 393 billion by 2050.

The conservation, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems can enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of societies to climate hazards & long-term changes such as flooding, sea level rise, and more frequent and intense droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires. Collectively, these approaches are referred to as Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA).

Because EbA works through the enhancement of ecosystems, these approaches offer scalability and flexibility, and often require less upfront investment than other approaches – together with offering significant biodiversity co-benefits and climate mitigation advantages such as securing terrestrial and soil carbon storage. EbA can further support societal resilience, food, water and livelihood security by maintaining or increasing the productivity of working landscapes and offer additional social advantages through opportunities for capacity building and collaborative governance.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) integrates climate responsiveness across multiple targets. It calls for both climate action to avert the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, together with the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of ecosystems and biodiversity. This includes sustainably managing wild species, sustainable agriculture and forestry, and effectively conserving and restoring 30% of the world’s lands and seas to restore and enhance nature’s goods and services to humankind.

Key messages

The strong evidence base for EbA makes it a straightforward choice for delivering on global commitments towards integrating climate and biodiversity action – including under KMGBF Targets 8 and 11 – for the benefit of people and nature. Ecosystem-based adaptation is well recognized across the Rio Conventions, and nearly 15 years of evidence and practical experience are available from implementation in diverse ecosystems and across more than 50 countries, demonstrating its potential for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises while delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals. Mainstreaming EbA into national commitments, strategies and plans can help simultaneously tackle biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change as well as make the goals for integrated climate-biodiversity action more specific, actionable, and effective.

Greater policy coherence between biodiversity, climate and land degradation targets and indicators allows for efficient use of existing resources and streamlining of planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting. Harmonizing national commitments, targets and indicators can support countries in maximizing the use of limited financial resources and capacity for planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting. Greater policy coherence can also provide opportunities for strengthening the capacity of diverse national agencies and actors to think and plan in an integrated way and provide financial resources for the implementation of work on the ground while delivering multiple co-benefits across targets on land management, climate and biodiversity, and disaster risk reduction and resilience. Globally, the fine-tuning of the KMGBF Monitoring Framework as well as of indicators for tracking the UNFCCC Global Goal on Adaptation offer a unique opportunity to streamline monitoring and reporting processes through aligning indicators and methodologies.

Ensuring that dimensions of equity are considered as cross-cutting imperatives in integrated biodiversity and climate action can facilitate the co-development of interventions that are just and sustainable for current and future generations. Integrating equity, through a greater attention to human rights-based approaches, which include considerations for gender, land tenure rights and other intersecting issues to facilitate social inclusion in EbA, is essential for ensuring that adaptation strategies are fair, effective, sustainable and just for both current and future generations. This requires respecting the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) where it applies, upholding social and environmental safeguards, and actively engaging rights-holders, including those who are marginalized, and duty bearers in capacity strengthening activities. Commitments and plans to use EbA approaches should be co-designed with communities, ensuring integration of appropriate mechanisms and safeguards, so that EbA interventions can enable inclusive decision-making and secure equitable access to benefits, while protecting both people and ecosystems.

CBD focal points, national biodiversity agencies and the research community can support the mainstreaming of EbA approaches by providing ecological expertise to their climate correlates to ensure EbA is planned and implemented as effectively as possible. With rising recognition of nature-based solutions under the UNFCCC and in national climate commitments in both Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), it is more important than ever that national biodiversity agencies, scientists, biodiversity experts, and natural resource planners are involved in the co- design, implementation and monitoring of EbA activities to ensure ecological viability, amplify the biodiversity contributions of these interventions where possible, and help maximize the long-term sustainability and resilience benefits to people. National biodiversity policymakers and agencies should connect with their climate correlates to ensure the effective planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of EbA interventions.

Enabling national biodiversity and climate policy coherence will require new and strengthened collaboration across government agencies, subnational authorities, and non-state actors. It is better to start the process now than wait for perfection. Policymakers can work together with practitioners and experts from a range of disciplines through existing networks like FEBA and other knowledge brokering organizations to access diverse experiences, and pooled resources and knowledge. Connecting with subnational and municipal leaders can help integrate and elevate locally-led efforts into national climate and biodiversity agendas. Enhancing collaboration across scales of governance can help maximize the impact of climate-biodiversity action by ensuring local actors and existing custodians are included in design and development of interventions. Improved national coherence could be achieved for example by establishing an inter-departmental coordination body to facilitate integrated biodiversity and climate planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting across sectors. Importantly, policymakers should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good in developing integrated targets and actions. Taking action to tackle our planetary crises cannot wait forever: we must start now.

Suggested citation

Goodwin, E., Sitas, N., Tyrrell, T., Davies-Jones, G., Lo, V., Epple, C., Lunnon, C., Nuutinen, M., & Wicander, S. (2024). Harnessing Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Drive Progress on Implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Friends of Ecosystem-based Adaptation (FEBA).