How does the CBD COP work?

We described earlier what the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity seeks to achieve by meeting this year in Nagoya. This is a process that will have major impacts on the world’s biodiversity policies. Nevertheless, most people would not be aware of the way these decisions are taken. 

The negotiations are followed by teams of (sometimes) dozens of people per country (‘delegates’), each topic is followed by a few specialists. There are several types of participants: the Parties (those who have signed the convention), the NGOs, the ILCs (Indigenous and Local Communities), observers and even “non-parties” who are countries, like the US, that have not signed the convention, but are attending.

The very first stage of the negotiations is the statements that are made by Parties in the plenary. The NGOs and Indigenous Peoples and local communities also have the right to make a statement after the parties have made theirs. These are big speeches where every Party tries to outdo each other in showing how committed they are to protecting biodiversity. 

The second stage is where parties get into Working Groups and discuss specific parts of a draft decision (195 pages), for example “biodiversity and climate change” or “forest biodiversity”. These are still big speeches, but a bit more specific, referring to the changes parties want to see in the text. 

On some of the issues, smaller contact groups or ‘friends of the chair’ groups are formed, to resolve specific issues. This is the third stage, where the most substantial negotiations take place. Smaller contact groups meet to discuss the specific text. They focus on parts of the text on which there is no consensus yet. These parts are [bracketed], which means that there was no agreement reached during the Working Groups . Indigenous and local communities have a seat at the table but their inputs need to be supported by one of the countries, thus their influence on the text mostly comes from lobbying countries backstage.

Once these smaller groups have reached a consensus or are stuck on some words, they take the text back to the Working Group, which debates it and either agrees on it or sends it back to the smaller group.

Each negotiator has a briefing from his hierarchy that she/he tries to implement. The debate can centre on specific words, that may look trivial to outsiders. For example, there was discussion for over two hours about whether to include the word “as requested” in a paragraph on biodiversity and climate change. The document that is being discussed is projected on a screen with “track changes” enabled. The debate can be quite tensed and is akin to a rhetorical chess game, and much of the arguments are superficial.

Eventually the brackets are removed and the text can be adopted in the plenary. Sometimes this has to wait until ministers arrive for the “high level” segment of the COP. The final texts become the Decisions of the COP that the Parties to the CBD have to implement. As you can tell, influencing changes in the text is a difficult task!