Environmental Conventions: Ozone, chemicals and biodiversity

Goal A of the framework covers ecosystems, species and genetic diversity. It aims to maintain, enhance or restore the integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems, substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050, to halt human-induced extinction of known threatened species, and to reduce the extinction rate and risk of all species tenfold by 2050, with populations of native wild species increased to healthy and resilient levels. It also seeks to maintain genetic diversity within populations. None of the other options is in the framework: the 2030 area target is 30 per cent, not 50 per cent of strict protection; invasive species targets aim at reduction, and nutrient targets at halving losses, not elimination.

Target 15 asks Parties to take legal, administrative or policy measures to encourage and enable business, and in particular to ensure that large and transnational companies and financial institutions regularly monitor, assess and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity, along their operations, supply and value chains and portfolios. It also asks them to provide information to consumers and to report on compliance with ABS rules. The aim is to reduce negative impacts and shift business towards sustainable production. Target 14 is about mainstreaming biodiversity across government policy, Target 20 about capacity and technology, and Target 23 about gender.

COP15 met in two parts: part one in Kunming (11-15 October 2021, largely virtual) and part two in Montreal (7-19 December 2022). China retained the presidency throughout, while Canada hosted part two as the seat of the CBD Secretariat. The framework was adopted as decision 15/4 on 19 December 2022. It has a 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature, four goals (A-D) for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030. Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong: the KMGBF is a COP decision, a political framework implemented through national strategies, not a protocol that needs ratification. The CBD's protocols are Cartagena and Nagoya.

Digital sequence information (DSI) means genetic sequence data that can be used without physical access to the organism, which creates a gap in classic ABS rules. The KMGBF addresses it in Goal C, which says the monetary and non-monetary benefits from genetic resources, DSI on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge are shared fairly and equitably and substantially increased by 2050, and in Target 13, which seeks effective legal, policy and administrative ABS measures covering genetic resources and DSI, with a significant increase in benefits shared by 2030. Decision 15/9 at COP15 agreed in principle on a multilateral mechanism for DSI, and COP16 at Cali in 2024 operationalised it through decision 16/2 and the Cali Fund.

Statement 1 is correct: the Convention was adopted on 22 March 1985, while Farman, Gardiner and Shanklin's paper reporting the Antarctic ozone loss appeared in Nature in May 1985. The Convention was therefore a precautionary step taken before the 'hole' was known. Statement 2 is correct: the Protocol, adopted on 16 September 1987, entered into force on 1 January 1989. Statement 3 is wrong: the Protocol is a protocol to the Vienna Convention; the UNFCCC was adopted only in 1992.

COP15 asked the GEF to set up a special trust fund to support the KMGBF. The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund was ratified and launched on 24 August 2023 at the Seventh GEF Assembly in Vancouver, with initial pledges from Canada (200 million Canadian dollars) and the United Kingdom (10 million pounds). The World Bank was invited to be its trustee, and the fund has sunset provisions linked to 2030. Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong: contributions from DSI users go to the Cali Fund, created under decision 16/2 at COP16 and hosted by the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office, which is separate from the GEF.

Goal D of the KMGBF speaks of adequate means of implementation and of progressively closing the biodiversity finance gap of 700 billion US dollars per year. Target 19 sets the overall resource figure at at least 200 billion US dollars per year by 2030, mobilised from all sources: domestic, international, public and private. Within it, sub-paragraph (a) asks for international flows, especially from developed countries, to developing countries of at least 20 billion US dollars a year by 2025 and 30 billion by 2030. Statements 1 and 2 are correct. Statement 3 is wrong because the 200 billion figure is explicitly from all sources, not only international public money.

As per the depositary table (status as of 5 October 2026), the Convention and the Protocol each have 198 parties, so statement 1 is correct. Statement 2 is wrong: the London, Copenhagen, Montreal and Beijing Amendments each have 197 parties, because the State of Palestine, which joined the Convention and Protocol in 2019, has not joined the amendments. Statement 3 is correct: the Kigali Amendment had 175 parties; Israel (5 October 2026) was among the latest to join.