On 29 September at 11 am CEST, UNEP and UNCTAD are organising an event on trade, biodiversity and natural resources entitled "What role for trade policy in a New Deal for Nature?"
Biodiversity is essential to maintain healthy and resilient ecosystems, which sustain life-support systems on earth. As a consequence, the rapid decline of the world’s biodiversity has not only become an increasingly serious economic risk, but also a mounting threat to human survival. In the Sustainable Development Goals, the global community has highlighted the importance of trade as a tool and essential means of implementation of sustainable development. At the same time, global trade exerts substantial pressures on the world’s ecosystems, with research estimating that 30% of global species threats and roughly 35% of tropical deforestation emissions are driven by international trade. Expanding trade in natural resources, commodities and agricultural products all have direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity.
In the context of mounting calls for a New Deal for Nature, and increasing recognition on the important role of trade policy therein, this session will provide participants with an opportunity to discuss cutting-edge scientific insights, latest political perspectives, policy innovations on the relevance of trade policy to the post-2020 biodiversity framework, potential opportunities to be seized and gaps to be addressed. Short presentations by panellists will offer a snapshot of available tools and metrics to measure trade-related impacts, trade policy options to protect, sustainably use and restore biodiversity, practical stakeholder initiatives to boost sustainability in global supply chains, and challenges and opportunities for developing countries.
Welcome Remarks
Steven Stone, Chief Resources and Markets Branch, UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Keynote
Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary General, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Panel Discussion
Moderator: Dr. Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, Senior Researcher, Global Governance Centre, Graduate Institute
Jean-Marie Paugam, Head of the French Delegation to the WTO, former Chair of the Trade and Environment Committee of the WTO (2019-20)
Neil Burgess, Head Scientist UNEP-WCMC, Principle Investigator UKRI GCRF Trade, Development, and the Environment Hub (‘TRADE Hub’)
Angela Francis, Chief Economist, WWF UK
Maria Julia Oliva, Deputy Director, Union for Ethical BioTrade
Marianne Kettunen, Principal Policy Analyst, Head of Global Challenges and SDGs, Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP)
Q&A