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IPBES in Bonn

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IPBES in Bonn

Ideal location for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Germany has long advocated the creation of an intergovernmental platform to provide scientific advice on biodiversity policy, comparable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). Such a biodiversity platform would provide political decision-makers with reliable, independent, credible and legitimised information on the status and development of biodiversity and enable them to make well-informed decisions on its protection.

At an international conference on the establishment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in Busan/South Korea in June 2010, the international community adopted a document paving the way for the new platform. On 21 December 2010, the UN General Assembly gave its go-ahead to set up the IPBES. In February 2011, the 26th session of the UNEP Governing Council adopted a procedural decision on the IPBES outlining the subsequent process.

In 2011, the onus is on the international community to take the necessary steps to facilitate the prompt establishment of the IPBES and put the necessary structures in place, particularly for the IPBES Secretariat.

Much of the credit for the constructive and successful IPBES process can be attributed to Germany’s Presidency of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) between 2008 and 2010. Germany will continue to be actively involved in the specific design of this instrument, and is committed to the prompt, carefully coordinated and successful development of the IPBES. It would welcome a decision to base the IPBES Secretariat at the UN Campus in Bonn, and is hopeful that German experts will be appointed to a number of committees.

The relevant documents for Germany’s application to host the Secretariat will be drawn up shortly. An initial flyer communicating and publicising Germany’s fundamental interest has already been completed by a interdepartmental project group spearheaded by the German Environment Ministry (BMU). In addition to the German version, this flyer is also available in the six UN languages plus Portuguese, and will be distributed, inter alia, among embassies and top-level representatives by the Foreign Office.