Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Official Report 743KB pdf

COP15 Outcomes

Item 3 is an evidence session that forms part of our scrutiny of the outcomes of the 15th UN biodiversity conference of the parties, otherwise known as COP15. Members have received papers on the subject.

Last week, the committee heard from a panel of experts in biodiversity policy. This week we will hear from the Scottish Government on its views on the outcomes of COP15 and about how the targets that were agreed at the summit will be embedded in the new Scottish biodiversity strategy.

I welcome Lorna Slater, the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. Thank you for attending today. I also welcome Matthew Bird, who is biodiversity team leader, and Lisa McCann, who is head of biodiversity, from the Scottish Government. I believe that you wish to make a brief opening statement, minister.

Thank you, convener, and thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the outcomes from COP15 and how we are integrating them into our biodiversity strategy. I know that you have already heard overwhelming evidence about the extent of the biodiversity crisis that we are facing here in Scotland and across the world, and about the importance of taking action now to tackle the decline in nature.

You have also heard about the historic Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, which was agreed at the end of last year. That framework builds on a vision, which I hope you share, of a world that is living in harmony with nature and where, by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, through maintaining ecosystem services.

As you are aware, I was honoured to attend COP15 with a small Scottish delegation, which culminated in our presenting the Edinburgh declaration to that conference’s high-level segment, on behalf of subnational bodies. As well as calling for a high-ambition outcome from the meeting in Montreal, the Edinburgh declaration also called for the critical role that subnational bodies play in addressing the biodiversity crisis to be recognised and allocated the necessary resources and powers to help to tackle it. I am delighted that the declaration was adopted at the conference and now forms part of the new global biodiversity framework.

The Scottish Government led the Edinburgh process at the request of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s secretariat, and I am very proud of the work that was done to promote it and to garner support for it. That work is demonstrated by the fact that, at the final count, the declaration had been signed by more than 300 subnational bodies from around the world.

Our draft biodiversity strategy was published to coincide with COP15, but it remained in draft form to allow us to take into account the new global biodiversity framework, thereby ensuring that we are meeting the global ambition. The strategy is where we set out our high-level vision for a nature-positive Scotland and our ambition to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and reverse declines by 2045. I have often wondered whether that is ambitious enough; although there has been a huge amount of really positive activity across Scotland in recent years—for example our scaling up of peatland restoration and our groundbreaking nature restoration fund—it is clear that there is still a huge amount of work to do. The type of change that we need takes time, which is why it is even more important that we start taking action now.

We are currently refining the strategy and are now very much focused on developing the delivery plans that will sit underneath it. Those plans will be where we will set out how we are going to achieve our high-level vision and outcomes.

I was very grateful to the committee for the careful and detailed consideration that it gave to the draft biodiversity strategy last year. Your comments formed an important part of our consideration in developing the strategy and, as I set out when I wrote to the committee in December 2022, many of those points were incorporated in the final draft.

We are also starting to explore with our subnational partners the next steps on implementing the Edinburgh declaration and how best we can work together to really deliver on the new global framework. I welcome this discussion today and I appreciate the attention that the committee is giving to this important matter.

Thank you very much, minister.