The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)1 was adopted during the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at 3:30 a.m. on the morning of December 19, 2022, against a backdrop of protests by African countries. This mirrored the fractious context of conservation over the last century and recent decades, and the 3.5 years of negotiation of the GBF leading up to COP15. With four goals and 23 targets, the framework sets out the next eight years of actions to 2030, a major stepping stone toward the convention’s vision of ‘‘living in harmony with nature’’ by 2050. The question now is whether implementation will repeat the experience of the Aichi Targets from 2010 to 2020, of which none were fully met, or whether this marks a turning point in international policy in overcoming the north-south divides to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and achieve sustainability for all.
