Liberalisation of the energy sector | Webinar Recap
Overview of the EU’s legislative system and the energy sector liberalisation
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Liberalisation of the energy sector
The liberalisation of the European energy sector was the continuation of the European Union’s effort to create a European single market.
The underlying idea is that the creation of an economic union would naturally bring European countries closer together leading to further political integration, thus guaranteeing peaceful inter-state relations.
The main purpose of the liberalisation process was to organise the provision of electricity and gas more efficiently by introducing competitive forces where possible and regulation where needed.
Main barrier to the liberalisation of the energy sector
Up until the 90’s the energy sector was structured around national monopolies preventing any kind of competition to emerge.
A major step in this process was thus to break down national monopolies or what is referred to as “unbundling”.
The first “unbundling” obligations appeared with the 1st energy package (1996-98) and required the separation of generation, transmission, distribution, and retail activities.
Secondly, to increase cross-border exchanges the EU massively invested in interconnections. The European interconnected grid is now the largest in the world with 400 interconnectors (cross border pipeline and electric cables) linking 600 million citizens.
What are the results of this process?
Positive aspects
- Opening the energy market to competition allowed new players to emerge.
- It enabled the establishment of a regulatory framework beneficial to renewable energy production.
- The creation of a large interconnected grid also facilitates the development of renewables as it improves the grid stability. Solar and wind being intermittent energy, it is essential to increase ways to maintain the network’s stability (that means to ensure that production always meets the demand and vice versa).
- Competition also drives innovation and energy efficiency (strong incentive for producers to find ways to produce more with less for a higher margin).
- Renewable energy production costs are constantly getting lower.
Negative aspects
- The price for end-consumers remained unaffected, and the promise of cheaper electricity and gas for the citizen wasn’t delivered.
- The low wholesale market price affects the capacity of large industries to remain profitable.
- The current market design forces the electricity price to be indexed on the most expensive commodity. With the war in Ukraine, gas prices went through the roof, driving electricity prices up (despite low generation costs of renewable and nuclear).
- With the entire energy chain in the hands of private actors, profit becomes the number one priority, ahead of the security of supply. This can cause issues of under-investment in critical infrastructures.
What are Energy Communities (or energy cooperative)?
Legal entities of citizens getting together around an energy transition project.
They run around 7 main principles :
- Voluntary and open membership
- Democratic member control
- Member economic participation
- Autonomy and independence
- Education, training and information
- Cooperation among cooperatives
- Concern for Community
Why are they so relevant to the energy transition?
It is estimated that half of the European citizens could produce their own electricity, covering about 45 % of the overall electricity demand.
89 % of the population could get involved in some energy system activity (for instance with the spreading of electric cars, households could offer energy storage services. Modern appliances like smart metres, remote control thermostats, electric vehicles etc. can offer demand response services*)
Energy cooperatives can get involved in a wide range of activities such as
Production • Supply • Distribution • Flexibility •Storage • Demand response •Energy monitoring •District heating • Transportation – E-car sharing • Energy savings – Collective home retrofits
*demand response: increased flexibility from the demand side to adapt consumption to the available generation.
On top of the technical advantages that the multiplication of energy communities could bring, these structures also fulfil a major social element of the green transition: Citizen engagement. The green transition is not only about switching from dirty to clean energy sources it is rethinking our entire economy and our consumption pattern. By giving the opportunity to our citizens to get directly involved in the energy chain, we create a population more aware of its own consumption and conscient of the behavioral changes needed to achieve our ambitious climate targets.
Major barriers to the creation of energy communities:
- • Access to funding
- • Lack of upfront investments and specific skills: Volunteer-based & lack financial skills. More risk aversion.
- • Lack of knowledge from financing institutions: banks don’t recognize the new and innovative business models of energy communities
- • Lack of streamlined/stable Government financing mechanisms: public finance can de-risk and mobilise further community & private capital
Want to learn more?
Watch this video explanation of the virtue of energy communities
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Haguar Mourad
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“We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.” – Vandana Shiva.
Many women have been remarkably stepping into environmental advocacy spaces to make their voices heard, but how important is it to integrate both feminism and climate activism in our advocacy discourse?
We have all heard activists and seen studies claim that women lead better and are peacemakers as they favour intuition and collaboration, so, could ecofeminism really be the ultimate solution for the environmental debacle we are facing?
The birth of ecofeminism
As we all may know, women are one of the main groups that are at the frontline of climate activism since they are particularly affected by the environmental crisis (80% of the people being displaced by climate change are women according to UN Environment), which is why special attention towards women and the climate change effects on them is needed. This is notably explored by ecofeminism.
The term ‘ecofeminism’ was first coined by the renowned French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne, who described it to be a branch of feminism that explores the connections between women and nature. What is also interesting about Ecofeminism is that it digs deeply into how both women and the environment are at risk as a result of the patriarchal rule. As a matter of fact, patriarchy has always been strongly linked with capitalism which explains the simultaneous exploitation of both natural resources and women as a social class.
Some not-so-fun facts worth mentioning are that 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty are women. In urban areas, 40% of the poorest households are headed by women. Women predominate in the world’s food production (50%-80%), but they own less than 10% of the land.
Ecofeminism is believed to be more respectful of nature and women as it decenters males and abolishes hierarchies, men are then not thought to be superior to women or nature. Although ecofeminism originated in Europe, the actual movement started in the USA during the late 1970s and early 1980s, where it took a more inclusive turn as it coincided with the rise of intersectional feminism. Intersectional ecofeminism holistically plunges into the living conditions of women from different backgrounds and dissects the inequalities they endure through an environmentalist lens. It is then considered to be the ideal activistic paradigm.
Why intersectionality is a necessity
While addressing the struggles of women in the context of climate change, the term “women” tends to be vague as they are not a homogeneous group, they actually exist on a large spectrum that should be meticulously analysed hence the need for an intersectional approach.
Intersectionality sheds light on different issues faced by various women, such as the different geographical contexts. As a matter of fact, women face different challenges based on where they’re from. For example, in areas that are prone to droughts, women often face different struggles than men. Environmental degradation such as droughts often leads to economic instability, and as a result, women may have to give up on resources such as education in order to support the family.
Ecofeminism recognises how gender roles make us experience our environment and nature differently, and how different gender roles may experience different consequences. Another example is how women in some contexts are forced to travel long distances to collect fuel, food, and water which subjects them to security risks and gender-based violence. Moreover, in Mexico and Central America between 2016 and 2019, about 1,698 acts of violence were recorded against female human rights defenders.
Different journeys equal different constraints
All struggling communities should then be provided with a platform that allows them to speak up about their experiences and share their stories that are a testament to their resilience. We can never do justice to the representation of the different journeys led by different women in the context of climate change, however, the best we can do is to make their names known, especially the non-white and underrated ones like Isatou Ceesay, Vandana Shiva, Susan Chomba, Sônia Guajajara and many others.
Going back to the initial question, women have the ability to make this world a better place: they are the backbones of their communities and the shapers of the future that we can’t overlook the importance of their role in eradicating the climate crisis, empowering them locally and globally could definitely revolutionise our dystopian foreseeable future.
So, if you were to envision a non-patriarchal world where women were predominantly leaders, don’t you also think that our history and present would have been vastly different?
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Intersectional Ecofeminism
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We need more women in our community
Rahim Zehdiev, a 27-year-old volunteer and green ambassador at Young Improvers for Youth Development in Smolyan, Bulgaria, is passionate about creating positive changes in his community and empowering young people, particularly in environmental issues. He is involved in various projects aiming to address environmental challenges and empower young individuals from marginalised communities.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Who’s Rahim?
I am Rahim Zehdiev, a 27-year-old volunteer and a green ambassador at Young Improvers for Youth Development in Smolyan, Bulgaria. As a member of a marginalised group, I have always been passionate about creating positive changes and empowering communities, especially when it comes to environmental issues.
What are the projects you are working on?
So I got involved with the Young Improvers through their initiative focused on environmental sustainability and youth development. And their mission aligns with my own values and aspirations and I saw an opportunity to make a meaningful impact in my community. I’m involved in their projects like in Erasmus and in European Solidarity Corps. So, I see it as though it’s my own mission.
What’s the mission about?
It’s like a mission because I see the need for change in our community, in our local community and in our community in Bulgaria as well. I want to start involving young people in these projects. So they get empowered and we can together aim for a change.
What kind of communities are you engaging?
I come from a community of Muslim population, we are a minority in Bulgaria. And we face a lot of problems. Things are changing for the better, but we have a lot of issues from the past.
I’m addressing these problems right now with the European projects. When we attend projects abroad, we meet people like us and together, we find better solutions for our problems, because we have a lot of similar issues. And it gives us a shared sense of belonging for us when we share our problems.
How do you engage the local minority?
We are trying to involve a lot of young people in my village, in the area around as well, by attracting them with a lot of things, because nowadays people are not too engaged. We find it difficult to find people who are willing to do activism and volunteer because they are easily distracted by everything else. And it’s even harder in my community because they are marginalised, and they have a lot of different views from the ordinary European people. That is because they are more conservative than the regular Europeans. And it’s very hard, but we find some ways to attract them.
But it’s even more difficult to have a gender balance. We are a lot of boys, and we have like one, two, or three girls in the group. So firstly it’s hard to find people, and then it’s hard to strike a gender balance and to battle the conservative views. It’s really hard, but we are improving every day, and we are finding people in the end.
What do your projects look like?
So our project is aiming to address environmental challenges and empower young individuals from marginalized communities. Our projects involve various activities such as awareness campaigns, educational workshops, and community engagement initiatives. So the projects are created to amplify the voices of those who are often underrepresented or misunderstood in the environmental movement and sustainable change.
What does activism mean to you?
Activism is really important for me because it is the main thing which can change things, and is the force to change something from bad to the better. And that’s exactly what we are trying to do here in my village, in the region, and in Bulgaria as well.
Can you tell me about your personal journey?
Back in 2018, I participated in a project in Turkey in an Erasmus training course and it was the very first experience of these projects for me and that’s when everything started for me. Before that I didn’t know anything about activism, I didn’t know anything about volunteering and then with each new project I participated in, I started to be more active and to volunteer. First of all in our local community, in local projects and then abroad with the YEE team and I have participated in more than 20 projects since then. On the local level I even applied for our own projects and even had my own project in my village for building a youth space here.
What’s next for you?
I am thinking about applying for more projects. I will also participate in some projects with our partners in Europe and abroad. But the local projects are the most important for me.
“Because we have to change ourselves first, then we can share good examples abroad.”
What kind of projects would you want to do in your community right now?
I want to make a screening event to project a movie against the plastic waste in our youth space. I want to play that movie because there is a big issue with plastic waste. Especially older people think that plastic is degradable in water and they throw the trash into the river. We have great nature here but the people do not appreciate it and they’re throwing everything into the river and it gets really messed up.
So I’m not only trying to gain younger people, I’m trying to show even the eldest people here what is wrong. We host a lot of movie screenings, seminars and meetings. We also hosted a climate-themed game.
What was the idea of the game?
It was a card game about climate change, what are its causes and how can we prevent it. It was really nice and a lot of young people gathered but sadly there were no women. This really saddened me, but I’m trying to improve this. I’m trying to fix this and I will do it.
If you could send a message out to these people that you would like to engage more, what would you tell them?
We need change. And we can be the change, because if we don’t act, if we don’t get involved, no one will. And the change is not going to happen by itself. It’s not easy, I know, but we can do it.
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Introducing Rahim | Showcasing the Unheard
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The Environmental Law Team of YEE participated in the 15th Task Force on Access to Justice, which took place in Geneva from 4 to 5 April 2023. During the meeting, Emma and Alex delivered their statements, contributing to the exchange of information and best practices regarding the implementation of the Aarhus Convention’s access to justice pillar.
The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate the exchange of information, experiences, and best practices related to the implementation of the Convention’s access to justice pillar. The focus of the meeting was on access to justice in cases concerning climate change and biodiversity protection, with discussions covering current trends, barriers, challenges, good practices, and innovative approaches in these areas.
Summary of Emma’s statement regarding the tools to promote Access to Justice
The latest IPCC report emphasizes that climate change will mainly impact children and young people, highlighting the need for long-term considerations and intergenerational equity in environmental legislation. Young people also face challenges in exercising their rights under the Aarhus Convention. The Aarhus Convention is important for environmental democracy, granting the public rights in environmental matters to protect the rights of present and future generations. Strengthening multi-stakeholder dialogue can ensure easier youth access to decision-making processes and hold institutions accountable.
Summary of Alex’s statement regarding Access to Justice in energy-related cases
Dependency on fossil fuel imports hampers energy independence and is finite, posing a threat to future generations. The Aarhus provisions play a crucial role in ensuring that energy supply in the EU has a positive impact on nature and communities. However, legislative proposals may impede access to justice in energy-related cases, prioritising renewable energy development over environmental protection and community engagement. The Aarhus rights, including access to justice, play a crucial role in promoting renewable energy, environmental protection, and public participation.
Learn more about the Aarhus Convention
Why Aarhus State Parties fall short of their obligation to guarantee the right to public participation of young people in environmental decision-making?
The EU is in breach of its obligations under the Aarhus Convention. Young people all over Europe are joining civil society organizations
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15th Task Force on Access to Justice | Statements of the Environmental Law Team
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For Georgian youth organization Umbrella, the year 2023 (January 21-30) began with an international youth project where 40 young people representing 8 countries (Belgium, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, and Moldova) and gathered in Overijse, Belgium, within the framework of the Healthy Youth project.
During the 8 working days, young people developed and implemented various wo
rkshops about healthy lifestyles, and exchanged personal and country’s good practices. At the same time, they discussed how to lead healthy lifestyles and change bad habits into green habits through digital tools and appropriate methods. Besides this, they had an awareness-raising rally in the town and a local visit to the Belgium EuroHealthNet organization.
The participants developed tools, like a poster, video, and a booklet – a treasury of all ideas developed or information gathered during the project. As a result, increased their digital, multilingual, personal, social and other competencies. Besides this, they enriched Europass’s CVs with an officially recognized Youthpass certificate.
At the end of the youth exchange, the participants developed an action plan to disseminate the results of the project, which was implemented at the local level within a month. In parallel with all of this, cultural and religious customs and traditions not only awakened their curiosity for learning new things but also expanded their mindset on a cultural level.
“Healthy Youth” project | Member Organisations News
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About the experts
Chris Vrettos is leading a project designed to help Member States assess whether their national funding programs (Cohesion Funds, Modernisation Funds, Recovery and Resilience Funds) are dedicating specific funds towards energy communities and if this is done in line with EU legislation.
Paul Ségalard has a degree in Energy and Climate law and is the leader of the Ampower project at YEE
Did you miss this webinar?
Download the presentations or read our recap and learn more about the European energy policy and energy communities!
Have questions? Get in touch!
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European energy policy | Webinar
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Agnes' priorities include:
HOW?
- 🟡 By simplifying policies and building the needed capacity for members of the European Youth Forum in order to create new ways of participation
🟡 Inspired by the Council of Europe, ensuring implementation of the co-managed policy-making within national and local levels by creating an interactive template format for adoption.
- 🟡 Working closely with European Youth Forum member organisations which are an access point for marginalised young people and creating an effective channel of communication to voice their views to the Council of Europe.
- 🟡 Working closely with the Drafting Group of the Recommendation Paper on Climate Crisis and young people, to ensure the final document reflects the needs and prospects of young people in this fight.
- 🟡 Increase access to opportunities for youth to directly participate in decision-making. Young people continue to play a significant role in environmental, political and social movements, but the momentum of this on-the-ground action is not leveraged to transform policy and decision-making processes, limiting their capacity to accelerate impact.
- 🟡 Build leadership development programmes within institutions to establish the next pipeline of talent that is empowered with both capacity building, institutional knowledge and the resources required to grow into leadership positions.
HOW?
- 🟡 There are no human rights if we do not have a healthy environment to live in. Council of Europe member states are still divided about this, and with the Reykjavik Summit around the corner, it is our turn to set our motion clear: right to a healthy environment should be part of our human rights.
- 🟡 Youth-led litigation is so powerful, so why not switch to youth led mitigation and guarantee our right to a healthy environment?
- 🟡 Youth can bring a strong intergenerational youth perspective and contribute to “greening” human rights.
- 🟡 Promoting the concept of climate justice to be added in the top of the agenda of the CoE as the division among north and south is increasing social inequalities, creating two pace societies when there is only one planet.
HOW?
- 🟡 Advocating for Advisory Council to have regular consultations with national representatives in order to strengthen the voices of all the Members.
- 🟡 Promoting the cruciality of funding to youth to ensure that no one is left behind
- 🟡 Ensuring that all the youth representations include young people from marginalised communities and rural areas, as youth is not a homogenous group
- 🟡 Ensuring that organised and unorganised youth are acknowledged, represented and youth workers are trained and follow safeguarding policies to access and protect those young people.
- 🟡 Raising awareness and advocating for the inclusion of young people affected by the conflict: The Russian aggression against Ukraine has had a significant impact on the lives of young people living in the affected areas; support and resources should be prioritised to the youth affected in order to guarantee peace and security.
Agnes Gkoutziamani runs for the Advisory Council on Youth 2024/2025
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Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of YEE.
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Mihai Oancea, a young Romanian from a traditional Roma community, is a founder of the youth NGO, ROMA T.E.A.M. Association. They offer mentorship programs and screening activities for vulnerable communities, with a focus on empowering young people. Mihai’s vision is to create community centers for education and mental health, and he believes that Roma people should be involved in different contexts to fight against racism and make the community more inclusive.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Who’s Mihai?
My name is Oancea Mihai. I’m from Romania. I’m 27 years old, and I’m currently living in Bucharest, but I’m from Argeș County, from a traditional Roma community.
What are the projects you are working on?
I have a youth NGO called ROMA T.E.A.M. Association, but I’m also working for another NGO. I work for the Roma Center for Health Policies-Sastipen in Bucharest. I engage with a lot of Roma and non-Roma communities in screening activities of people from rural and urban areas, but mainly focusing on vulnerable situations. Us, as the young people working there, we found out that the young generation there is not active at all within the communities.
After visiting a lot of different communities, we concluded that we should help. We started a mentorship program in some of the communities that we have been involved in. And after the program was set up, we wanted to carry on. We decided to open a youth NGO, a Roma youth NGO, but not helping just Roma people, because were going for diversity.
We tried to gather resources in order to attract young people. We are trying to grow the organisation into working at the grassroots level with the people. So we have so many plans, but we will take it step by step.
How are you attracting young people to join you?
All of us come from rural communities. We are Roma people. We are also non-Roma people. We have been there. We know how it is. We know how to handle difficult situations and how to attract people. Because we have been in their situation. This is the key that we are using in order to work with them.
What about your personal journey? How did you get to where you are?
One day, someone from an organisation called me, asking me to deliver some packages for the kids at the Christmas market. And I knew the organisation was working with people with fewer opportunities in vulnerable situations. And I’ve been there as well.
I knew how the people were feeling. I asked the project coordinator if I could help out with something or if I could do something for the children.
I wanted to be a volunteer. I started to volunteer with the children. I was doing their homework with them. I was providing them with food to eat and then cleaning after them. And they started to call me a teacher. It was a big step for me, wow, they are calling me a teacher.
It was a very nice opportunity to try to get more involved in other people’s lives, especially with the young people, Roma and non-Roma people.
When I moved to Bucharest for university I knew someone who, at the time, was working for the first Roma organisation from Bucharest. I became a volunteer there and I participated in their projects. I met a lot of people.
Then I visited a youth NGO and I saw something different from what I had done before. I wanted to get more involved. I got involved with the Romanian Roma Youth Civic Union, a nationally known organisation, where I continued to work for young people, especially for Roma youth. For a few years, I organised activities such as youth forum rights and human rights activities.
I enrolled in the postgraduate program here in Bucharest, and I started to work for the Roma Centre for Health Policies-Sastipen. Here we started creating new opportunities and meeting new people. That is how I ended up opening a youth NGO for Roma people and continuing working for the old NGO in the health sector.
What is your vision?
When we started the NGO, we felt that we needed to do a different kind of work, that was more grassroots level. We are working at the grassroots level and trying to empower young people, as well as working with parents from rural communities.
“What we aim to do is try to change the mentality of the people, to show them new opportunities, to empower them to shape their own future, knowing they can decide what to do with their future and that they have a right to it. “
We go to the rural communities, we work with the children and as they grow up, they know that they will have opportunities. Their teachers and parents will also be involved in their personal development, this is the key.
What is your strategy?
We would like to have a community centre, not just one, but one for each area that we work in. That is a big plan for the future.
For the moment, we want to focus on small communities and grow step by step. We are involving the local authorities in the young people’s education and we try to work with the teachers because they are key in supporting students with their studies and letting them know that it is important to believe in themselves. We also want to start focusing more on mental health. We are part of the French Embassy and Youth French Council from Romania where we applied for a project focusing on mental health.
We chose a high school from Bucharest, to have a pilot project. It is very important to start talking about mental health in these communities, as Roma people experience a lot of discrimination and this is one part of the puzzle to combat it. Focusing on mental health is very important in order for the students to be motivated to go to school, to try to and see other things in their life.
If you could send a message to the young people out there, what would it be?
I would have wanted to know about the opportunities that were out there back in my childhood. I didn’t know that I had the opportunity to get educated about my financial situation, personal development and other things. The thing is that we need to find a reason to grow. We need to find a reason to go to school and we need to find a reason to see life with new eyes.
And we need to search for that, not just stay in one place waiting for it. Try to look for the things that you need in your life. Try to communicate more with your parents, with your teacher, and with yourself, it’s very important.
Try to work with yourself. Get to know yourself. Try to see what are the challenges in your life in order to challenge them.
Transform yourself. Go for the opportunities.
The Erasmus Plus project is helping a lot. This is an opportunity to show young people with fewer opportunities other perspectives of life, to meet new people, experience new cultures, and share theirs.
“When I first went to an Erasmus Plus project, I met Roma people from Greece. I’m Roma from Romania. We spoke the Romani language. It was like a revelation. Look what happened. Look how nice it is.”
Erasmus Plus projects are also an important opportunity to involve people and try to insert themselves in new contexts. It gives them the opportunity to consider that they can be a teacher, they can be a doctor, they can become a lawyer.
As a Roma community, we have experienced a lot of discrimination, racism, and slavery, and we have been through the holocaust. I want to be there when people learn about that. I want to see the young generation spreading the information in order to fight against racism and make the community more inclusive so that people can understand us better. We are not different. We have been there in war, we have been there at the dawn of society. We have a culture and we have perspectives.
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We need nature. Wetlands, forests, grasslands, marine habitats… all of them play a crucial role in regulating the climate and are vital to our survival. But did you know 80% of European nature is in bad shape? Luckily, all hope is not lost! We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn the tide for nature in Europe: a law to #RestoreNature.
This opportunity is unique because this law will legally oblige EU countries to restore a set amount of nature. If they fail, they can be held accountable, and taken to court.
Right now, governments across the EU are discussing this new law. Join us and over 200 NGOs and ask your decision-makers to adopt a solid and urgent implementation of the law that can curb nature and climate crises.
You are just one step away from making a difference for nature
Send a nature picture and letter to your government and Members of the European Parliament!
Influence the EU Nature Restoration Law | #RestoreNature
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Discussing the outcomes of COP15 and the next steps
Written by
Heather Needham
Sophia Ullrich
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The Biodiversity Crisis
It is 2023 and we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction. Unlike the five extinction events before, this one is primarily caused by human activity and the unsustainable use of land, water, and energy. According to the latest Living Planet Report, published in 2022, there has been an average 69% decline in monitored global wildlife populations between 1970 and 2018.
Due to the interlinked nature of the climate and biodiversity crises, rising temperatures are already causing mass mortality events, causing entire species to go extinct. Climate change is expected to replace land use change as the main driver for biodiversity loss if the 1.5-degree target will not be met, underlining the urgency of bold action on both crises.
The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Convention on Biological Diversity that was held in December 2022 was a crucial moment for 196 countries to come to an ambitious agreement that would put us on the path to come to “peace with nature“. With the stakes as high as they are today and none of the Aichi targets of 2010 being met, the hopes for a complementary goal to net zero by 2050 – net-positive biodiversity by 2030 – were high, together with the delivery of strong targets to set us on the path to a safe future for humanity.
What is the Convention on Biological Diversity?
In 1992, a historic international legal instrument (known as a treaty) for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and equitable sharing of genetic resources was agreed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Today, 196 countries have ratified the treaty, known as the Convention of Biological Diversity (that’s nearly every country on the planet!).
The Parties of the CBD, meet regularly every two years to set commitments and global targets. In 2010, the countries united to set the twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets (under the CBD Strategy Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020) in order to make radical changes to protect and prevent irreversible biodiversity loss across the world. A decade later, on the expiration date, disappointingly, in a UN report, it was found that not a single one of the targets had been met.
With biodiversity declining rapidly over the last decade, an agreement and agenda for 2030 and 2050 was urgent. Two years delayed (December 2022), the members of the CBD met for COP15 which was held in Montreal, Canada with the goal to finalise and agree to targets for protecting and enhancing nature for 2030 and 2050.
Global Biodiversity Framework
The conference concluded with an international agreement that set new goals and targets, recognised as the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The GBF includes four overarching goals and 23 targets to achieve by 2030.
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework: 23 targets
| Target | Description |
| 1 | Effective management of land- and sea-use change, loss of highly important biodiverse areas close to zero by 2030 |
| 2 | Effective restoration of 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030 |
| 3 | Effective conservation and management of 30% of land and 30% of oceans by 2030 |
| 4 | Halt human-induced extinctions and maintain and restore genetic diversity |
| 5 | Sustainable use, harvesting and trade of wild species |
| 6 | Mitigate or eliminate the impacts of invasive alien species, reduce the rates of establishment of invasive species by 50% by 2030 |
| 7 | Reduce pollution risks and impacts from all sources by 2030, reduce the overall risk from pesticides by half |
| 8 | Minimise the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on biodiversity |
| 9 | Ensure sustainable use and management of wild species, while protecting customary use by Indigenous peoples |
| 10 | Sustainable management of areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry |
| 11 | Restore and enhance ecosystem function through nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches |
| 12 | Increase the area and quality of urban green and blue spaces |
| 13 | Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources |
| 14 | Integration of biodiversity into policies and development across all sectors |
| 15 | Enable businesses to monitor, assess and disclose their impacts on biodiversity |
| 16 | Encourage sustainable consumption, including by reducing food waste by half by 2030 |
| 17 | Strengthen capacity for biosafety measures and ensure benefits-sharing from biotechnology |
| 18 | Phase out or reform harmful subsidies in a just way, reducing them by $500bn by 2030 |
| 19 | Substantially increase financial resources, mobilise $200bn per year by 2030 from all sources, including $30bn from developed to developing countries |
| 20 | Strengthen capacity-building and technology transfer |
| 21 | Integrated and participatory management, including the use of traditional knowledge |
| 22 | Equitable representation and participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities |
| 23 | Ensure gender equality in the implementation of the framework |
30 by 30
One of the targets that had been on the agenda far in advance is target 3. Pushed for by the High Ambition coalition (an intergovernmental group of more than 100 countries), the target calls for 30% of the earth’s land and sea to be effectively conserved and managed by 2030. This should be achieved through the establishment of protected areas (PAs) and other area-based conservation measures (OECMs).
On a European level, the most important categories of PAs are the Natura 2000 network established through the Birds and Habitats Directives, the Emerald network and UNESCO Biosphere reserves. Target 3 acts as the replacement of Aichi target 11, which aimed for the protection of at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas. While that target was not met on a global level, it was partially successful in numbers, the number of terrestrial PAs increasing from 10% to 15% and from 3% to around 7% in marine areas, as reported in the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5.
However, concerns regarding the actual quality of the PAs were high, as many lack connectivity, don’t always safeguard the most important areas for biodiversity and are not equitably and effectively managed. The quantity vs. quality debate is continuing now with the 30 x 30 target, demanding the GBF to emphasise the quality of PAs and OECMs to accompany the 30% target.
In connection to target 22, which calls for equitable representation and participation of indigenous peoples and communities (IPLCs), there is serious concern about the 30 by 30 target on indigenous rights, as it fails to recognise indigenous rights as a separate category of PAs. In a joint statement, a group of major human rights organisations such as Amnesty International claimed that the target “will devastate the lives of Indigenous Peoples and will be hugely destructive for the livelihoods of other subsistence land-users, while diverting attention away from the real drivers of biodiversity and climate collapse”.
This so-called “fortress conservation” describes conservation initiatives that focus on nature in the very narrow sense and don’t take traditional territories and livelihoods of IPLCs into account, not acknowledging traditional knowledge. Studies have found that areas managed by indigenous communities contribute equally as much to global biodiversity conservation as state-governed areas and other governance types.
Increase finance for biodiversity
Target 19 of the Framework aims to mobilise at least US $200 billion per year in international biodiversity funds and raise international financial flows from developed to developing countries to at least US $20 billion per year by 2025, and to at least US $30 billion per year by 2030.
Directing funds towards developing countries is important since they are often home to the largest share of the world’s biodiversity and face significant economic challenges that can make it difficult to invest in biodiversity conservation and restoration efforts. However, according to a report from the Nature Conservancy, at least $700 billion (again, instead of US $200 billion) a year is needed to fund activities that benefit nature and resultantly, reverse global biodiversity loss by 2030. Therefore, there is a shortfall in international biodiversity funding and concerns about how the gap in biodiversity finance will be achieved.
In addition at the Conference, it was agreed that the Convention through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) will set up a Special Trust Fund (known as the GBF Fund) to act as a financial mechanism for the implementation of GBF. However, the GBF is seen as a shortfall since the Parties failed to create a dedicated international biodiversity fund separate from the existing GEF fund. The GEF is under-resourced and also addresses other global issues such as climate change (it funds UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement). Moreover, there are issues accessing the GEF funds and bias of funding towards countries that have the capacity to submit proposals.
Reduce environmentally damaging subsidies
Target 18 of the Framework aims to phase out or reform harmful subsidies for biodiversity and reduce them by at least USD 500 billion per year by 2030. A study this year found that global governments spend at least $1.8 trillion a year (equivalent to 2% of the global GBP) on subsidies that harm the environment. Fossil fuel, agriculture and water industries receive 80% of these EHS per year. A similar target for reforming subsidies was part of the Aichi targets which wasn’t achieved. Governments failed to act on subsidies and there is concern that Target 18 of the GBF might not be reached. The loss of biodiversity from perverse subsidies undermines and works against the goals of the CBD.
There is a need to redirect a significant proportion of the subsidies to support policies that are beneficial for nature, rather than “financing our own extinction”. Redirecting and repurposing subsidies can make an important contribution to finding the US $700 billion per year in biodiversity funding needed. In the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the European Council pledged to phase out EHS and reform subsidies that have negative impacts on biodiversity. Moreover, the EU is working to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, which has historically supported intensive farming that can contribute to biodiversity loss, to promote more sustainable farming and reduce the use of pesticides and fertilisers. In addition, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy includes measures to promote sustainable fisheries management and reduce the environmental impacts of fishing activities.
Youth NGOs and their role in nature conservation
While The Global Biodiversity Framework has increased ambitions compared to its predecessor, is without a doubt an imperfect solution. Calls for higher numbers in funding, changes in the funding structures as well as concerns about indigenous rights and the quality of Protected Areas are credible and are just examples of weak points of the GBF.
To save the trust in and credibility of the agreement, the actual implementation of the targets in the coming 2 years (until the next CBD COP) will be crucial. If done right, the agreement does have the potential to make a difference in biodiversity conservation on a global scale. However, taking into account the lack of quantifiable measures that make it possible to hold countries and governments accountable, the role of actors of the civil society and ultimately Youth is undeniable and should act as a motivation to push for the implementation of the agreement.
Prior to the Conference, the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) had expressed strong concern that judging from the draft agreement, the GBF would lead to another decade of „more of the same“, describing a lot of the proposals as „false solutions“. Following the activities of Global youth networks and NGOs such as the GYBN is the first easy step you can take to step up for global biodiversity conservation. Holding governments accountable is up to us, especially considering the fact that the agreed targets are not legally binding for the signing parties. That is why getting involved on a national level is just as important, which can easily be done by contacting the MP of the department for environment, raising questions, concerns and thoughts. Youth are raising awareness for the issues concerning nature conservation and climate change by getting involved in International Youth Boards and organisations and making sure that their voices are heard.
More To Explore
Is the Global Biodiversity Framework enough?
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YEE aims to unite environmental youth non-profit organisations in Europe in order to enhance international cooperation, increase knowledge about the climate crisis, raise awareness of environmental problems and to strengthen participation of youth in environmental decision-making.
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Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
