The Amazon is close to the point of no return. COP16 is a critical opportunity to act

Over the past few months, communities in the Amazon have been living through a ferocious fire season following a period of extreme drought. Fuelled by deforestation, the El Niño weather pattern and compounded by climate change, the number of fires reached its highest level in 14 years this September.

The fires are one of the symptoms of a global ecosystem in peril. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024, published today, warns that the world is fast approaching dangerous, irreversible tipping points driven by the combination of nature loss and climate change. It reveals that there has been a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations in just 50 years (1970-2020), leaving ecosystems less resilient and more vulnerable to climate change, leading to regional tipping points with global implications.

In the Amazon, deforestation and climate change are warming and drying the region, pushing it closer to a tipping point where it can no longer survive as a rainforest. Even the “flying rivers” that carry humidity from the Amazon rainforest to other parts of the continent have turned into vast corridors of smoke that can be seen from space. And it’s not just the Amazon under threat – coral reefs and other ecosystems are also nearing critical tipping points.

If the Amazon reaches a tipping point, it will release billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere through fires and plants dying off. This would further exacerbate climate change and make the 1.5°C goal impossible to achieve. It would also alter weather patterns, which would impact agricultural productivity and global food supplies.

Losing the Amazon rainforest would be devastating for the communities and wildlife it supports. The Amazon is home to over 47 million people, including 2.2 million Indigenous Peoples, local communities and other rights holders, who depend on its resources and have cultures deeply interwoven with the forest and the nature it supports. The rainforest holds more than 10% of Earth’s known species, including the endangered pink river dolphin. Hundreds of dolphins are known to have died last year due to extreme heat and drought, and experts are concerned about the risk of further mass-mortality events.

Fortunately, we are not yet past the point of no return, and nature remains our greatest ally in tackling the climate crisis.

We already have the solutions and global agreements to set nature on the path to recovery and drastically cut emissions by 2030. But their success depends on the decisions we make and the actions we take over the next five years.

A key moment on the horizon for governments and businesses is the 16th UN biodiversity conference (COP16), hosted in Cali in Colombia from 21 October to 1 November. Here countries have a critical opportunity to demonstrate bold leadership and deliver on the commitments they made almost two years ago at COP15 in Montreal – where they adopted the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

For the GBF to succeed, countries need strong, well-funded national action plans to recover biodiversity. In Montreal, governments promised to submit their national plans by COP16, but with just over a week to go, the vast majority have yet to do so. COP16 is the occasion for governments to speed up the delivery of their own nature targets and step up support to other countries doing the same.

While the push in the GBF to conserve 30% of the world’s land, waters and seas is crucial for nature’s recovery, it is not enough on its own. COP16 must adopt action-led decisions that further transform our food, energy and finance systems if we’re to seriously move the needle on biodiversity loss. Real progress requires eliminating overconsumption, and changing harmful business and finance practices that are destroying nature, worsening climate change and undermining the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and other rights holders.

Safeguarding the natural systems that support all life requires everyone’s involvement. It’s not just the job of environment ministries; we need transformative action from all sectors and across all levels of government. Policies and business models for climate and sustainable development must work hand in hand with plans to protect biodiversity and vice versa. Only by working together can we ensure a thriving planet for future generations.

To sustain our economies, we need to invest at least $700 billion a year in nature. That is less than 1% of total global GDP, and much less than the $7 trillion a year that pours into activities that fuel the nature and climate crises. While the private sector can offer ways to boost biodiversity financing and scale investment in nature to contribute to the $200 billion per year committed under the GBF, governments must also keep their promises.

In Montreal, developed countries committed to mobilizing $20 billion a year to developing states by 2025, which is far from being achieved. Agreement on how to equitably share the benefits from the use of nature’s DNA is also an important piece of the puzzle – as is ensuring that adequate, timely and accessible funds reach the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that have been safeguarding nature for millennia.

As a country that hosts 10% of the world’s biodiversity, Colombia has a deep understanding of the value nature can offer in building resilience against the climate crisis, and in achieving peace and stability. COP16 has all the hallmarks to be a true “people’s COP”, one that brings Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendent communities, tribal groups, rural communities, women, youth, business leaders and environmental human rights defenders together. Finding a way to live in harmony with nature would offer us all greater equality, safety and prosperity. We can restore our living planet and essential ecosystems like the Amazon, but we must first find peace with nature.