2nd Extraordinary Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity 16-19 and 25-27 November 2020, Online Meeting

 

The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was initially scheduled to be held in October 2020. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it has been postponed to later this year. As a result, no adoption of a programme budget for the next biennium (2021-2022) was possible.

 However, the CBD still needed its Parties to meet to pass an interim budget for 2021, for the Secretariat to remain operational; since the current budget for the Secretariat ran out on December 31^st, 2020.

 As the approval of the new programme budget was not possible it was agreed to convene the second extraordinary meeting of the CBD Conference of the Parties (Ex-COP 2), the first extraordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CP Ex-COP/MOP 1) and the first extraordinary meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (NP Ex-COP/MOP 1), to consider and approve an interim budget for 2021 based on the work of an informal group on budget. Therefore, the meetings were held from the 16^th – 19^th November 2020, remotely, through a silence/written procedure (i.e.  a form of adopting texts whereby silence implies consent).

 The meeting was opened on Monday 16^th November 2020, with the presentation of the draft budget. Parties were given 72 hours to raise objections in writing. On Thursday November 19^th 2020, a brief suspension of the meeting was announced until November 25^th for further consultations among Parties to resolve a written objection. After another 48-hour “silence procedure” was then observed, and on Friday November 27^th 2020, the successful adoption of the budget and closure of the Ex-COP was announced by written communication.