A Big Win As UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP16 Reaffirms Geoengineering is a Risk

Submitted by Ronnie Hall on Fri, 2024-11-08 09:13

Hands Off Mother Earth! Alliance press release

November 4, 2024

Cali, Colombia

As negotiations at the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP16 draw to a close with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity reinforcing a historic decision on precautions of geoengineering and reaffirming the call on a global moratorium to geoengineering, Indigenous groups, youth advocates, climate justice and civil society organizations that are members of the Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance are lauding this historical decision of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

This decision can be a moment of reckoning to pause technofixes and instead focus on real climate solutions that address the root causes of climate change.

Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity Sixteenth meeting: “Reaffirms decision IX/16 C, on ocean fertilization, paragraph 8 (w) of decision X/33, and decisions XI/20 and XIII/14 of 9 December 2016 on climate-related geoengineering, and urges Parties, and encourages other Governments, to ensure their implementation”

Pacific Islands championed the issue at COP16, in light of the alarming increase in uncontrolled outdoor experiments in recent years, and the Conference agreed by consensus to reaffirm the moratorium. Silvia Ribeiro said, “The Convention on Biological Diversity has sent a strong message to the world by reaffirming the 2010 moratorium on geoengineering, a decision by consensus of its 196 governments. The Convention on Biological Diversity recognized early on that so-called climate 'solutions 'like geoengineering could backfire and have serious impacts on biodiversity.'

For over a decade, the CBD has led the way globally in recognizing the potential dangers of geoengineering. During COP10, it agreed to a de facto moratorium on geoengineering to protect biodiversity and Indigenous lands, reaffirming its commitment at COP13 in 2016.

Despite the CBD's moratorium, commercial and experimental geoengineering activities have accelerated in the last few years, risking significant harm to human rights and the environment. Mary Church, CIEL's Geoengineering Campaign Manager said, “The Convention on Biological Diversity has sent a very clear signal that the moratorium on geoengineering put in place more than a decade ago, is still extremely relevant. At COP16 many governments drew attention to the potential for serious and irreversible impacts on biodiversity and communities, and highlighted their concern about the growth in uncontrolled outdoor experiments, making it clear that the CBD's precautionary approach is more important than ever. Governments must now ensure that these decisions are fully implemented and risky outdoor experiments are prevented.”

SIlvia Ribeiro added, “An increasing number of commercial and academic promoters of geoengineering attempt to sell these risky proposals as ways to lower temperature or remove carbon, which would give high emitting countries and polluting industries an alibi to continue doing business as usual.”

Coraina de la Plaza, Global Coordinator, Hands Off Mother Earth Alliance said, “This is a big win for the climate justice movement, peoples and communities. With the climate and biodiversity crisis worsening with each passing day, it's time to focus on real climate solutions that address the root cause of climate change and biodiversity, and not geoengineering technofixes. At the upcoming UNFCCC COP29, we hope governments will take this historic decision into account and not push for false solutions like geoengineering to be part of discussions.”

—ENDS—

Additional Resources

About Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance

The Hands Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance is a driving force in the fight against the growing threat of large-scale technological manipulation of the climate and biodiversity: geoengineering. We are an international civil society network of close to 200 organizations from over 45 different countries, from the Global South and the Global North. HOME was first launched as a global campaign in April 2010 at The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In October 2018 we released the HOME Manifesto denouncing geoengineering with a demand for an immediate stop to all open-air experiments.

For media inquiries please contact

Neha Gupta, Communications Coordinator

Email: comms@handsoffmotherearth.org, WhatsApp/Signal: +91 98100 78055

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