The UN Biodiversity Conference was originally scheduled to take place from 15-28 October 2020, in Kunming, China, but was postponed on 23 March 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 15 July 2020, the CBD announced the meeting would take place from 17-30 May 2021. However, on 18 March 2021 the CBD Secretariat updated parties that the meetings will take place instead from 11-24 October 2021, in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

The Conference comprises the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the tenth Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Cartagena Protocol COP/MOP 10), and the fourth Meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing (Nagoya Protocol COP/MOP 4).

CBD COP 15 will review the achievement and delivery of the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. It is also anticipated that the final decision on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework will be taken, together with decisions on related topics including capacity building and resource mobilization. As part of the process to develop the post-2020 framework, an open-ended intersessional Working Group, co-chaired by Francis Ogwal (Uganda) and Basile van Havre (Canada), provides the framework for negotiations. The first meeting of the Working Group took place in Nairobi, Kenya, from 27-30 August 2019. Its second meeting took place in Rome, Italy, from 24-28 February 2020. The third meeting of the Working Group was expected to convene from 27-31 July 2020 in Colombia but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Find out more...