UN gets new dates for biodiversity convention talks

Two meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s permanent subsidiary bodies, previously scheduled for May 2020, have tentatively been rescheduled for August and September 2020, respectively.

The 24th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA-24) will now be held August 25 to 30 2020; and the third meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-3) will take place September 1 to 6, 2020. Both meetings will be held in Ottawa, Canada.

In addition, the workshop on the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-5) will be held on August 23, 2020, open to all participants of the SBSTTA-24 and SBI-3 meetings.

“The Secretariat and the Parties to the Convention take the health and safety of families seriously.  These changes maintain the needs of public and personal health while also keeping the momentum towards negotiation of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Acting Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

“In active consultation with the Parties, through the Bureau, and in coordination with the UN Environment Programme and all other UN system actors, we will continue to keep the situation under review.”

As a consequence of these changes, the dates for the third meeting of the Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, as well as for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and concurrent meetings of the Parties to the Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols will need to be adjusted. Alternative dates are presently being discussed with the host governments and the co-chairs for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

The Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice plays a key role in assessing the current status of the world’s biodiversity and in bringing emerging issues related to the conservation of biodiversity to the attention of the global community.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entering into force in December 1993.