9th Summit for Subnational Governments & Cities, UN Convention on Biodiversity - COP 17

Care for people should inform the same decisions. A greener neighborhood, a protected river landscape, or a more efficient public building can serve both environmental goals and the daily needs of residents. Our Green City Action Plan helps give this work a long-term direction. Joining IUCN has also opened an important opportunity to connect local experience with international conservation expertise. We want to use that partnership to strengthen our work and contribute to the experience shared among cities. That exchange is one of the most valuable purposes of this summit. The coming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework gives us a shared direction. Local and regional governments have a vital role in putting it into practice through land use decisions, public investment, and the management of natural areas. We also have a responsibility to listen to our communities and make environmental progress meaningful in their lives. Over the course of this summit, I hope we can be specific about what helps us deliver, the partnerships we need, the barriers we can remove, and the approaches that others can adapt. Our contribution should be measured by what we are able to put into practice after everyone returns home. As Yerevan takes forward the work of the 8th Summit in Cali, I would like to thank the city of Cali for its leadership and contribution. We are proud to continue that cooperation here. The future of our cities will be shaped by the priorities we set today and the consistency with which we act on them. Let us use our time together to strengthen both. Thank you for being here, and I wish you a productive and successful summit. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mayor. What a wonderful city to be welcomed to. And now it is my pleasure to invite, and it's my honor to invite His Excellency Hambardzum Matevosyan, Minister of Environment of the Republic of Armenia, and the President of this COP17, to please take the floor. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Dear Mayor of Yerevan, Madam Executive Secretary, dear Mayor Kor, dear Vice President Werling, dear governors, mayors, and leaders of regions and cities, dear friends, it is my great pleasure to open the 9th Summit of Sub-National Governments and Cities, and I am pleased to see such engagement around this important day. And I thank ICLEI Regions for the CBI Secretariat, and the city of Yerevan for bringing us together, and I salute Cali, which today hands the baton to our capital. Countries have signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. But when we talk about implementation, we talk about places, which includes cities and regions like yours. Dear colleagues, we meet at the decisive moment for the global biodiversity agenda. Just a few days ago, on 16 October, leaders gathered in Yerevan for the Leaders for Nature Summit. And the Yerevan Declaration, taking action for nature, adopted during the summit, sends a clear message. We must move from commitments to measurable action and lasting results. And it recognizes that this can only be achieved through a whole of a government and whole of a society approach with the meaningful contribution of cities, regions, and local authorities where the KMGBF will ultimately be implemented. Cities and subnational governments are not simply implementers of global commitments. They are essential partners in developing solutions, mobilizing communities, and delivering change on the ground. And Yerevan is a city of more than 2,800 years, and it is writing a new chapter. As the mayor said, the municipality is moving to protect the Hrazdan Gorge, the river corridor that runs through our capital, as Yerevan's first municipal protected natural area. Nationally, our 2026 reform allows communities for the first time to establish and help manage protected areas of local importance. And for this scope, the Minister of Environment and the municipality have worked side by side. This is what multi-level governance looks like in practice. We also need to address one of the most important conditions for implementation: finance. If we want to close the implementation gap, cities and regions need better access to finance, technical assistance, technology, and partnerships. Innovative financing must be connected to local priorities. and capable of delivering real outcomes for nature and people. And for Armenia, COP17 is about more than bringing the global community together. It is about helping to create a stronger pathway from international commitments to implementation. I encourage all of you to use this summit to build partnerships, share practical solutions, and identify actions that can be scaled and sustained beyond COP17. The road to 2030 is short, and the time for implementation is now. Armenia is proud to welcome you to Yerevan, and I wish you productive discussions and concrete outcomes. So let this summit carry one message into the negotiating rooms: no target is only national. Every target is local somewhere. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Your Excellency, and thank you also for understanding that our constituency are governments that are here and ready to support the national governments to achieve what they set out to do. And we wish you all the best with your deliberations overseeing this COP. Thank you very much. And now it's my real pleasure to welcome the Executive Secretary of the CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity, Astrid Schomaker. Please. Wonderful to have you here with us.

Excellencies, dear Mayor, dear Minister, honorable mayors and governors, distinguished delegates, dear friends, wonderful to see so many of you here. It's a Saturday morning. Welcome to all of you. We are so grateful you're here, and happy United Nations Day to all of you. We're celebrating our 81st anniversary today in the United Nations, and no better reminder of what we can achieve when we put our energies and our brains and our ideas together. And that is, of course, what this meeting here is also about. So I'm really delighted to be here with you. Of course, I would like to start by thanking ICLEI Regions 4 and the city of Yerevan for convening this ninth summit as part of the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference. And again, I want to thank the mayors, governors, and representatives of cities who have joined us. We do appreciate the time you are taking and the energy and leadership that you continue to dedicate to biodiversity action. here and, importantly, back at home. You actually embody this whole of society and whole of government approach that the Convention talks about, that the Kunming-Munai Global Biodiversity Framework talks about, and that we know we need in order to accelerate implementation of our joint framework. And so I'm also very pleased that many of you actually join the celebration this year of International Biodiversity Day on 22nd of May under the theme Acting Locally for Global Impact. And that was, of course, also done a lot with ICLEI, and we held our first global flagship celebration in South Africa. But we did want to drive home that message that also the minister has expressed and the mayor, that action is ultimately local. And that's, of course, also where the impacts are. So since you last met in Cali, a lot of progress has been made, specifically in decision 1512. A review of the engagement of subnational government cities and other local authorities was envisaged and has been undertaken. It was considered at the seventh meeting of our subsidiary body in Nairobi earlier this year, and it's now here before the parties at COP17. And that gives us an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved, where challenges remain, and importantly, what can we do to strengthen this engagement going forward. As you've heard, we're undertaking a broader review here at COP 17 of our Convention on Biodiversity Framework at the midterm of its validity to 2030. And the message has already been expressed by, I think, all speakers so far, and it is abundantly clear. Yes, we're making progress. Yes, solutions are there. But big, but the progress is not yet at the required pace and scale for us to meet the 2030 targets. So implementation must be accelerated urgently at all levels, and importantly, close to home. And then that's where you come in. No biodiversity action can be accelerated or undermined when a region or a city makes decisions on themes such as urban planning, land use, infrastructure, water resource management, and so many more. And these are really examples of the decisions with which all of you are dealing on a daily basis. So they have a direct impact on the well-being for citizens. That must be your primary concern. but they're also crucial for nature, for biodiversity, and for the long-term resilience of your cities. So that must also be your primary concern. Makes you very busy people, and we know that you are. But then coming together in a meeting like here, that's sharing the practical experience, the knowledge of your territories and communities. and an understanding of what works in individual contexts and what does not work. That's the value of our discussion today, that you can have this exchange, and then please bring it back to the negotiations so that we can learn from it and integrate it in our future thinking and decision-making. We all need to learn from that. Because there is the fundamental fact that, of course, the Minister of Environment was also keen to point out, ministries of environment cannot by themselves achieve our framework. Regions and cities are at the heart of the whole of government and whole of society approach. And yes, I want to echo him. As a result, what we need is to see stronger cooperation between national governments and cities and regions. But at the same time, it's also not about just shifting the burden over to you and saying, get on with it. It's also about empowering you so that you can actually contribute to your fullest potential. But what does that mean in practice? Again, I think the mayor has been very clear, the minister has been clear, stronger institutional coordination, adequate capacity, access to financial and technical resources, and of course, also opportunities to participate meaningfully in national biodiversity planning and implementation. Now, all parties have recognized this, actually, and that is embedded in the Plan of Action for subnational government cities and other local authorities for biodiversity. But again, implementing, recognizing and implementing are two things. So it's a call we repeat here that this needs to happen. With the Plan of Action, we have a common framework for collaborative biodiversity action. Maybe one area where this can be implemented very directly is the planning and reporting, so that your contributions can be reflected when nations report to the convention on how they implement the framework, so that we have the fullest possible picture on where we stand in action. So coming to a conclusion, the UN Biodiversity Conference, the framework, Really, its success hinges on what changes on the ground in the places where people live, work, and interact with biodiversity. Much of it is within your purview. So we also need continuity and such. It was great to see how the baton was handed on from Cali to Yerevan. And I think we are confident that with Yerevan's leadership, we can go forward towards our 10th summit in two years. and from success to success, and see more action, and see you more empowered. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Executive Secretary. Thank you also for the clarity that you are bringing from the United Nations to our community of subnational and local governments, understanding what pivotal role they play in this global alliance between nations and all levels of government to implement the decisions that come out of COPs like this. So it is now my pleasure to move, and I would just like to say that there is going to be a handover of the baton, which is now a tradition for us at these COPs, from the one city to the next city, and we'll witness this in a little while. I'm now moving to our two host network organizations, ICLEI and Regions 4, in that order, and then we'll come to a keynote and some messages of goodwill. But let me start now with ICLEI, and I'm very happy to welcome to the stage Mayor Alfredo Coro, who is from Del Carmen in the Philippines. His role today here is ICLEI's leader, executive political leader for the portfolio of biodiversity, health, and water. Mayor Del Coro, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Excellencies, the COP17 Presidency's CBD, our Honorable Mayor Avinian, our gracious host, Governors and fellow Mayors, distinguished partners, colleagues, marajao na adlaw sa tanan. It is a pleasure to join you here today, the 9th Global Biodiversity Summit. It is an honor to speak on behalf of Italy and our network of 2,500 local and regional governments. We have heard about frameworks and targets. Let me share what this looks like from a city perspective in a small municipality in Siargao Island in the Philippines, located on the eastern seaboard, facing the Pacific with an annual four months of typhoon season and currently experiencing prolonged El Niño. As mayor of Del Carmen and its political representative for biodiversity, water, and One Health, I believe it is important to remember that biodiversity is not just an environmental issue. Nature is not an agenda item. It is daily life. We host the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the Philippines, and our mangroves protect us from our coast from storms. They feed our fishing families, and they store carbon. We protect nature. We are not choosing nature over development. We are choosing our community's future. That is why I say that biodiversity is fundamentally about people, their health, their livelihoods, and their future. Simply put, healthy nature means healthy people. And I know that my fellow mayors and governors here today understand this. Because we are the ones people come up to when the floods arrive, when the house is destroyed, when the fish disappear, or when the water runs dry. So, to my fellow mayors and governors in this room, let's lead by example. We don't need to wait for anyone's permission to act for nature. Let us make our actions visible. Commit and report to Cities with Nature and Regions with Nature, so the world can see that local governments can deliver. Let's learn from each other. Every city here has solved a problem another city is still facing. Take one idea home from this summit and share one. ICLEI is here to help you do this by connecting you with technical support, with peers. and with partners. Through ICLEI, local and subnational governments are already working to translate global commitments, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, into action on the ground. We have an opportunity to bring our collective political voice to this global agenda, share our experiences, and demonstrate that action for biodiversity is also action for human well-being, for our families. Let us use this summit to strengthen our partnerships and ensure that nature remains central to the discussions we make for our communities, for our future generation, and for our planet. Always, local governments and people are taking action for nature. Salamat, Karajao. Let's have a wonderful day.

Thank you, Mayor Corro. And now, just before I invite our regional representative up, Regions 4 Vice President Jan Werling, please join us on stage. I would like to remind you that we will be handing over the ceremonial baton and take a group picture with our dignitaries before they have to leave to other high-level events. So now, it's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Jan Werling, Vice President for the Ecological Transition, Climate, Energy, and Biodiversity of the Île-de-France region. Doris is inside there as well, in France. Please, the floor is yours. You're speaking about Regions 4 as the Vice President of Regions 4 for Europe. Thank you, Jan.

So, let's practice a little bit of French. Je vais donc parler en français. Merci. Je vous souhaite à toutes et tous la bienvenue au nom de Regions4, en tant que co-organisateur du Sommet. Je salue les gouverneurs, maires, ministres, représentants des présidents de la COP, responsables des Nations Unies et autres personnalités présentes. Et je remercie l'Arménie et la ville d'Erevan, le Secrétariat de la Convention Biodiversité et l'ICLEI pour leur leadership et leur collaboration dans l'organisation de ce neuvième Sommet. Le premier bilan mondial des progrès collectifs lors de la COP17 constitue une occasion importante d'évaluer la mise en œuvre du cadre mondial de Kunming-Montréal pour la biodiversité et d'identifier les mesures nécessaires pour accélérer cette mise en œuvre à l'horizon 2030. Le sommet réunit des dirigeants disposant d'une expérience pratique et de solutions susceptibles dans lequel nous vivons, est très localisé. C'est bien donc à l'échelle régionale que sont façonnées les décisions en matière d'aménagement du territoire, d'infrastructures, d'agriculture et d'investissements publics. Les gouvernements régionaux assurent le lien entre les écosystèmes, les communes, les secteurs économiques, tous les acteurs d'un territoire au sein d'une vision territoriale partagée. Ils permettent de donner de la cohérence à l'action à l'échelle requise par la nature. Ils sont les garants de la réussite des protections mises en œuvre et de leur pérennité dans le temps. Nous avons d'ailleurs des exemples, y compris en France, de réussite en termes d'atteinte d'un des objectifs majeurs de la COP des accords de Kunming-Montréal, l'atteinte des 30 % d'aires protégées. En France, nous les avons atteints grâce à cette gouvernance particulière que nous avons mise en œuvre.

Ultimately, it helps us, not at local, but also at global level, to find solutions. That should be everywhere. It all allows us to save the nature. As a representative of Paris Municipality, I think that this cooperation is crucial. The cooperation at the regional level, first of all, provides for sharing experience, right? It could be negative, positive. But ultimately, we are here to bring various solutions. For over 20 years, we've been moving forward the regional priorities for biodiversity, and those are of advisory nature. And it is today that we cooperate with our colleagues at Quebec. platform, and the cooperation at different levels integrates different qualifications, different experiences, and then ultimately, it changes into initiatives that are scaled up. There are national initiatives. We are trying to adapt our needs and correct our mistakes. have to follow very attentively the progress that we have ensured. We have to be able to identify the needs with all the mechanisms that work in our countries. And we have to be able to consolidate all the estimates and clearly design the actions that are going to take us forward. So when we do that consolidation, we will be able to restrain actions that are negative, that do not yield We will have to take into account regional activity, activity that is currently being supported by the regional bodies, local bodies, activity that, in fact, creates opportunity for cooperation. That's always our priority, and we are full of commitment to operate in a faster pace, faster regime. Let me now move towards a personal statement for myself, because there have been numerous challenges in COP and the future COPs. They are close, and there will definitely be more ambitious programs, and we are coming closer to these goals, more ambitious goals. So we have to know the actions we have to take to consider the climate change. We have to be able to understand how much funding we might be able to raise in order to solve these issues. And I'm currently urging everyone to make use of this day to turn the cooperation we have into something stronger, more effective.

We will take a very quick group photo of this panel, and then we will hand over the baton and get a very short message from Mayor Ada, from our previous host at Eden Carley. So please, if we can smile for the camera for a group photo for this panel. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if I'll supporters from the back and start playing the video from Mayor Eder from the city of Cali before we hand over the baton, that will be wonderful. Thank you very much. I know some people may have to leave us from the stage at this point. You are welcome to do so. Thank you very much. We know you've got very busy schedules. It's not a negotiation day, but it's still a very high level contact group and meeting day for the United Nations CBD. Thank you very much. Can I call up the lady that's going to hand over the baton? And Ingrid, you're going to accompany the lady on behalf of the mayor from Cali. Thank you very much.

Dear friends in Yerevan and around the world, two years ago, Cali had the great honor of hosting the COP16 on biodiversity. And together, we made history. More than 1 million people took part in COP16, making Cali the most widely attended biodiversity COP in history. Biodiversity moved beyond the negotiating rooms and into our streets, our neighborhoods, and our communities. That is why we called it the People's COP. But for Cali, COP16 was much more than a successful global event. It marked the beginning of a lasting legacy. From our city, we launched the Alliance for Cities for the Protection of the Choco Biogeographic Region, one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. We also promoted a global collection of cities to confront criminal economies that threaten biodiversity. Because in Cali, we believe that cities can and must play a leading role in protecting nature. As part of that legacy, With the support of the Convention on Biological Diversity and many international partners, we created Cali's Biodiversity Week, which will take place every two years, alternating with the COP Biodiversity Summits. It is a platform to strengthen environmental awareness, promote innovative solutions to environmental challenges, and advance bioeconomy initiatives. We look forward to welcoming you in Cali in September 2027. for our second Biodiversity Week and the World Bird Fair, bringing the world together to celebrate biodiversity and our extraordinary bird life. We also hope that COP17 will help strengthen and advance the implementation of the Cali Fund, creating the conditions for it to mobilize resources and support biodiversity protection projects around the world. Today, I also want to share an important message from our city. On August 10th, Cali was struck by a devastating earthquake that deeply affected our people and our city. But even in the face of this tragedy, we have chosen to look forward and turn reconstruction into an opportunity to build back stronger, to create a more resilient, more sustainable Cali, even more deeply connected to its biodiversity. We want to show that protecting nature also means protecting our cities, our communities, and life itself. Today, from Cali, we proudly pass the torch to Yerevan. We wish you an extraordinary COP17, one that continues turning global communities into concrete action in our territories. From Cali to Yerevan, we remain united by one purpose. protecting biodiversity and building a more resilient future for our cities. Let our cities rise with nature. We wish you a successful COP17, Yerevan.

Thank you very much. And now we invite the mayor of Yerevan up to the stage with us. It is now the moment where we are passing the symbolic and not so symbolic baton from mayor to mayor, from COP to COP. What a tradition, what a moment. Thank you very much. This is on behalf of the Mayor of Khali to the receiving Mayor of Yerevan, who will be our custodian for our constituency between now and the next COP. Thank you very much. I think we all feel very safe in the hands of these mayors. We remember the wonderful moments in Cali, and we will now make many new memories here in Yerevan to stand us strong in the months and the years ahead till we meet again as a constituency at COP18. So thank you very much. With this, I'm closing this part of the panel, and would like to invite to the floor now a keynote speaker, Susan Gardner, who is from the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP. Susan, you come always with such inspirational words. Please introduce yourself with your full title and share with us your keynote address for this opening.

Well, Honorable Mayors, Excellencies, colleagues, it is a real pleasure to join this summit here in Yerevan. And I wanted, well, I'm Susan Gardner, the director of the Ecosystems Division of UNEP, based at our headquarters in Nairobi. It's an honor to speak with you all, so many leaders, where we have already seen so much progress on biodiversity as a priority. I'm inspired by your remarkable efforts. I'm inspired by how you have shown how you incorporate the benefits of nature in your cities and in your regions. So it's not my task now, I can see it's been done, to be able to convince anyone now that biodiversity matters. Those points have already been very well made. It's also not my role anymore, it's been well done, to demonstrate that our local and regional governments have an essential role to play. You've already seen the evidence of that, and you all know that better than most. Instead, what I want to do is focus on how do we move faster? Because we spent years and decades in negotiating the agendas and the targets of the Kalinga Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement, and our commitments to protect and restore degraded land. And there is no question that has been essential work. But today, Now, as we sit with just four years left until 2030, we know it's time to move more quickly. We need to make all the different parts of governments and our policies and our investments all work together to deliver on what we have agreed to do. And although these international agreements are negotiated separately, the challenges that they address are deeply connected. Too often, the way that we govern, the way that we invest, just doesn't reflect that connection. Cities and regions have a particular role to play and a particular opportunity to change this. So allow me to add my voice to those statements from the esteemed mayors that you have already heard of and highlight just some specific points. And the first one being to connect agendas. We heard a powerful example from Mayor Corol with the Philippines' experience on water. Too often, cities that are facing water shortages, they're also dealing with floods. They're also dealing with water quality challenges, and they're dealing with the loss of natural habitat. And while these are often addressed as separate problems, they likely share the same underlying cause, which is we've disrupted the landscape, and we've disrupted those natural water systems. But we do have examples where this can be turned around. For example, in Kigali, the city's working with farmers and local communities to actually restore its wetlands, and those wetlands are absorbing floodwaters, they're improving water quality, and they're providing habitat and wildlife, while at the same time creating jobs and opportunities for their citizens. So we get one intervention that has advancements across multiple international commitments, from biodiversity conservation to climate adaptation to land restoration and sustainable development. But the important point is where we start. Instead of developing separate local programs for each international commitment, we can start with the problems that people face and look for the solutions that deliver on several priorities all at once. That's how the global commitments can actually become coherent local action. And we know with the limitations and resources that it can achieve even more with every investment. And that leads me to my second point, which is about connecting across the government. Because even the best integrated solutions are going to struggle if institutions continue to work in isolation. I mean, let's face it, we all know that too often nature is treated as the responsibility of one environmental department. And yet the decisions that are actually determining the future of biodiversity can be at times made elsewhere. Those, for example, who are responsible for deciding on roads and housing or agriculture and water supply, those who are deciding on economic development and public finance. Consider, for example, urban development. A city may be investing in restoring green spaces and protecting biodiversity, and then at the same time, you have decisions about new housing, roads, commercial developments that are somewhere else continuing to destroy natural habitats. These decisions being made all by the same government, when isolated into different departments, don't work towards the same objectives. We lose an opportunity there. Biodiversity needs to become part of how the city plans its development, how it approves its infrastructure, biodiversity being the center of allocation of public monies. And this is where your leadership matters. As mayors and regional leaders, you bring these developments together and you make sure that the decisions support rather than undermine each other. And of course, the same principle will always apply towards money. Globally, every dollar that's invested towards nature-based solutions, roughly $30 flow into activities that are harming nature. Of course, No one thinks it's possible for cities and regions to be able to redirect all of those flows, but with your influence over public investment, you can help move things in the right direction with what infrastructure gets built, what activities receive incentives. I just learned yesterday about a beautiful example from Paris, where sustainable food programs are benefiting the health of Parisians. It's benefiting carbon emissions. It's benefiting biodiversity, while it's improving the bottom line for the farmers. Everyone along the supply chain is benefiting. These are win-win solutions that are models for working together and sharing the benefits. Because the alternative is we risk protecting nature through one budget line and then financing its destruction through another. And my third point is about connecting people, because changes of policy and budgets is still not going to be enough. The decisions about protecting and restoring nature, they affect people's very neighborhoods, and people know that better than anyone. If we look at the example of Quezon City in the Philippines, young people and local communities are helping identify places for green corridors. for pollination gardens, for other restoration efforts. We've heard so many beautiful examples. UNEP is very proud to be supporting this work through our Generation Restoration program, because it's these people, these young people who know which places need attention. They know where the green spaces are missing. They know how they want their neighborhoods to be used. And when they get to help with deciding what their city will look like, it gives them a greater stake in ensuring the success. The Global Biodiversity Framework calls for inclusive decision making, but participation must go beyond just inviting people to comment on a plan that was already prepared by somebody else. It means involving them in setting the priorities and making the decisions. It means respecting their knowledge and their rights. It means ensuring that women are present as leadership and that young people are meaningfully engaged. You all know your communities. You're in the position to bring that knowledge and those concerns into the decisions that will shape their lives. So, in conclusion, dear friends, We often speak about the role of cities and regions in turning global commitments into local action. This has been said many times. But national governments and the international community have so much to learn from your experience. You are showing how different commitments can be delivered together, how biodiversity becomes part of everyday decisions about infrastructure, budgets, and livelihoods. And as we approach 2030, we need to take what's working in your cities and regions, what we've heard from you already today, and those examples that you'll be discussing throughout the day, and use those lessons to change how we govern and invest at every level. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Susan Gardner from UNEP.

Donc le projet de la biodiversité de l'ONU. Maintenant, donc les messages qui peuvent être énoncés des places en provenance de différents pays, de différents continents.

Tout d'abord, donc.

Thank you very much. Distinguished mayors, governors, dear colleagues, on behalf of Armenia's Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, I am pleased to convey our support to the participants of the 9th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities. Global commitments acquire meaning in the places we call home. In the river, a community restores, the forest it protects, and the decisions that shape its future. That is why your leadership is indispensable to the promise of COP17, taking action for nature. For Armenia, nature and culture are deeply connected. Our landscapes sustain livelihoods, shape identities, and carry the memory of generations. Our communities are custodians of this living heritage and essential partners in securing its future. All of Armenia's regions are represented in the Green Zone. I invite you to discover our country through their people, traditions, and natural wealth, and to explore opportunities for lasting cooperation. As we advance the Kunming-Munai Global Biodiversity Framework, we must give local and regional governments a meaningful voice in shaping policy alongside the authority, expertise, and resources to deliver it. For our ministry, this means bringing biodiversity into everyday decisions that shape communities: how we plan settlements, manage land, build infrastructure, and invest in public services. Stronger institutions, accessible financing, and cooperation across levels of government are essential to making this possible. This summit offers an important opportunity to turn shared experience into practical partnerships. I wish you productive discussions, fruitful partnerships, and a successful summit whose result reach the communities with Serbs. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Deputy Minister. Thank you very, very much. And now we turn to Japan, where it is my absolute honor to welcome to Navy Vice Governor Yoko Furuse, who is the Vice Governor of Aichi Prefecture, and who is addressing us with a message of goodwill on behalf of goals. who is a fundamental group of subnational leaders that come all the way back from COP10. Thank you very much, Vice Governor.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Yoko Furuse, Vice Governor of Aichi Prefecture, Japan. I'd like to extend my heartfelt congratulations on the grand opening of the 9th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities. I'd also like to express my sincere respect to ICLEI, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Regions IV, the Government of the Republic of Armenia, the City of Yerevan, and all those who have contributed to the successful organization of this conference. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak at this distinguished gathering today. COP10 was held in Aichi Prefecture in 2010, where the Aichi Biodiversity Targets were adopted. Prior to this conference, Aichi hosted Expo 2005 Aichi, Japan, under the theme Nature's Wisdom. Expo 2005 Aichi is widely regarded as the first vision-driven world expo in which environmental conservation was presented as a solution to global challenges. It also pioneered a new model of citizen participation, where citizens and NGOs are involved from the planning stage. The Expo significantly raised public awareness of environmental issues and biodiversity conservation. It also encouraged collaboration among diverse stakeholders. In addition to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, COP10 also adopted the Plan of Action on of national governments, cities, and other local authorities for biodiversity. This plan of action formally recognized the important role of local and regional governments in biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, Aichi Prefecture and the city of Nagoya jointly organized the first summit of subnational governments. The summit adopted the Aichi-Nagoya Declaration, contributing to the adoption of the Plan of Action. COP10 marked a major turning point, demonstrating that subnational governments can also play a visible and influential role in the process. Since COP10, Aichi Prefecture has shared its initiatives with the international community, while fostering exchanges with subnational governments. In August 2016, ICHI established goals, the group of leading subnational governments toward ICHI biodiversity targets, together with five other subnational governments who share the same visions. Since its establishment, GOLS has contributed to mobilizing subnational action worldwide by promoting the vital role of subnational governments during COP and other meetings. In particular, ahead of COP15, GOLS has co-hosted the Edinburgh Process with the Scottish Government and other partners to help ensure that the voices of local and regional governments were reflected in global negotiations. This initiative contributed to the adoption of GBF and the updated Planet Action on subnational governments, cities, and other local authorities for biodiversity 2023 to 2030. Going forward, goals will continue to lead and inspire subnational governments and contribute to achieving the goals of the GBF. Finally, by working together with diverse partners at various levels, we can achieve far more than we could alone. I hope that today's summit will inspire even greater action by subnational governments, cities, and other local authorities. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Vice Governor. Thank you. And now it is my pleasure to invite our last speaker, who's also going to share a message of goodwill, Costas Bakoyannis, who is the Chair of the Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy of the European Committee of Regions and the Council of Athens, Greece. Thank you very much.

Distinguished members, mayors, governors, colleagues, and friends, it is a true privilege and a pleasure to be with you this morning. And allow me to also extend my thanks to the organizers, the city of Yerevan, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, IICLEI, Regions 4, and all partners who continue to ensure that the voices of cities and regions are heard within the global biodiversity agenda. We gather, I'm sure you will agree, at a pivotal moment. COP17 is the first major opportunity to collectively assess our progress in implementing the coming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Four years after its adoption, the question before us is no longer whether we do have ambitious goals, We know that. The question is whether we are delivering the transformational change required to place nature on the path to recovery. And if there is one lesson that experience has taught us, it is this: global biodiversity commitments can only succeed if they are translated into actions on the ground. Allow me to say that across Europe, cities and regions are already demonstrating what implementation actually looks like. This is why the European Committee of the Regions has consistently advocated for a stronger role for local and regional authorities within global environmental governance. As a political assembly representing over 1 million elected politicians from Europe's cities, regions and municipalities, the Committee of the Regions seeks to ensure that multi-level governance becomes a reality and not merely an aspiration. We strongly believe that subnational governments must be recognized as partners in implementation, monitoring, reporting, because this is where biodiversity policies ultimately become visible to citizens. Let me give you an example, which I think does illustrate this point rather well. The European Union's Nature Restoration Regulation. It is a regulation that actually represents a landmark commitment to restore degraded ecosystems and strengthen Europe's contribution to the global biodiversity framework. Welcome from all of us. But its success will not be determined in Brussels. It will be determined in river basins, forests, agricultural landscapes, coastal zones, and urban neighborhoods all across Europe. Make no mistake: cities and regions have an indispensable role to play in delivering the Global Biodiversity Framework. This is precisely why The role of subnational governments is becoming increasingly important within the Convention of Biological Diversity. The adaptation of the Plan of Action on Subnational Governments, Cities, and Other Local Authorities marked a significant step forward. Today, however, we must build on this progress. We need stronger participation of cities and regions in national biodiversity strategies and action plans, in implementation mechanisms, and in the systems that monitor and report on collective progress. The Committee of the Regions is proud to support and to work with Cities with Nature and Regions with Nature. These initiatives provide invaluable platforms. They help make local action visible. Most importantly, they remind us that while our territories may differ, many of our challenges and solutions are actually shared. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, COP17 offers us an opportunity to send a clear message. Cities and regions are not simply stakeholders in biodiversity policy. They are indispensable actors in its delivery. This is why the voice of cities and regions matters. This is why the Committee of the Regions will continue to advocate for stronger multi-level governance, for stronger partnerships, and stronger recognition of the contribution for subnational governments to be made for protecting and restoring nature. So let us join forces and all work together to ensure that when future generations actually look back to this decade, will be able to say that COP17 was a moment when the world moved decisively from ambition to implementation. Many thanks and have a good day.

Thank you so much, Kostas. And may I just say that I'm delighted that you have mentioned these two amazing global platforms where cities.

And regions can commit, connect with one another, and report their commitments and actions and progress against those commitments in the platforms called Cities with Nature and Regions with Nature. What's remarkable about these platforms is that they are formally recognized by this COP, by this CBD Convention as the commitment and action platforms, and they recognize these actions then when they go back to the negotiation halls and the parties as another mechanism for understanding the value that we, actions locally are bringing to these conventions and to global policy and global decision making. So thank you very much for highlighting that and thank you for the great work and the continued work that the Committee of Regions is doing across Europe. We have had a fantastic opening session. I think we all feel very welcome and connected and together here now. So I would like to, before we close out, share how open our doors are by opening another city who comes with a message of goodwill, and this is the city of Naples as a special guest from the city of Yerevan to come and present a quick message from the city of Naples to this community before we close the session. Thank you.

Thank you so much, distinguished mayors, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure to be here in Yerevan. We thanks a lot our sister city to invite here, we today here, and thanks to ICLEI to create this moment of discussion on really important matters. We live in a world where challenges are increasingly global, but their consequences are local. Climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and environmental degradation do not stop at national borders, and they certainly do not wait for international negotiations to be concluded. Our cities and communities experience these challenges every single day, because diplomacy is no longer something that happens exclusively between national governments. Cities can be diplomatic actors too. We can build bridges, exchange knowledge, share successful policies, and learn from our mistakes. We can work together, even when our countries are geographically distant or politically different. And I think that ICLEI, as an organization of local and subnational government, can help us to do this. We can often do this with flexibility, pragmatism, and a shared sense of urgency. In APOS, we strongly believe in this approach. We believe that international cooperation should not simply produce declarations or agreements. It should create opportunities, strengthen communities, and improve people's lives. And this is particularly true when we talk about biodiversity and environmental sustainability. Global commitments need local action, and local action needs international cooperation. This is why for me, for the city of Naples, it's really important to stay here today, because we strongly believe that only through this network like ICLEI, like the collaboration between cities, regions, and metropolitan areas, we can foster these types of issues. I would like to conclude with a simple thought. We don't need every city to reinvent the wheel. We need cities willing to listen to each other, to share what works, to acknowledge what does not, and to move

forward together, because ultimately, the future of our planet will also depend on the relationship we build between our cities today. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thank you very much. A wonderful word from the city of Naples. And now I invite my distinguished panelists to please, you're welcome to take your seats again and enjoy the rest of today with us. Thank you for your fantastic opening celebrations here this morning and words of wisdom from the heart and from the mind. And really, thank you. We appreciate all of you. And I want to say thank you to this message from Naples, but it's not Italy alone. We are doing this in a community. We are doing this, Regions 4 and ICLEI is co-convening this, but we're doing this on behalf of the Global Task Force. And the Global Task Force is convened by our friends and our colleagues from UCLG, United Cities for Local Governments. We have UN Habitat here with us. We have so many. We need partnerships like Goals and many others to make the ambition of cities and regions around the world true, create an enabling platform, make sure they're all connected, and they're all working welcome to communicate with the parties. I now invite my dear friend and colleague, Ingrid Kutsir, up to the stage. Ingrid Kutsir, many of you know as the woman that never sleeps because she's in the negotiations. from morning to night, and in days, she is doing a lot of technical work in the biodiversity space as well. But she's our lead negotiator in ICLEI, and also I can say for this constituency, having been an instrumental part of driving through more than 20 decisions, helping parties to understand the need for getting the voice of local and subnational governments not into these halls only, but commit them in tangible decisions at these COPs. So Ingrid works closely as our first diplomat for biodiversity with the parties themselves, with all of you, with all our other city networks, networks and our regional government networks in the advocacy space, in the policy and governance space at global level, but also leading our technical biodiversity work. Ingrid, thank you for taking care of this panel. And now I would like to just call up the rest of the panellists. going to join you for this panel. And firstly, let me call Efron Ali, who's the Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the UN-Habitat. Efron, please, you're welcome to take the floor with us. Wonderful to see you here. I think the last time we saw each other was in Istanbul at the Zero Waste meetings. Wonderful to have Hugh and Habitat with us here. And then David Ubura, who is the chair of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Many of you know them as IPBES or IPBES. David, you are welcome to join us up on stage if you are here. I didn't see David. with us now, but maybe he will join us in a minute. And then last but not least, Harriet Buckley, Deputy Executive Dean for Research at Durham University and Professor at Utrecht University. Another woman who doesn't like to wear only one hat, that's for sure. Well, Harriet, welcome. Thank you very much. Ingrid, I'm handing the floor to you, and if David arrives, he can join you on stage. Thank you very much, Ingrid.

Thank you, Kirby. As we heard this morning, we stand at a critical point in our planet's history, and we need to accelerate action to meet the targets and halt biodiversity loss across all agendas, all sectors, and all levels of government. So with this dialogue, we're going to focus on global leadership and the road to 2030 and beyond. We will explore progress under global frameworks and opportunities for greater coherence to accelerate implementation. And I have a few questions to our esteemed panel. I noticed that David is not here, and hopefully he will join us in a while, but we're going to start so long with the first question. So, as we race towards 2050 and beyond, Arfon, Harriet, and David, when you arrive, what from your perspective is the one ambitious and innovative global transformation that we must spark here today and in Yerevan at CBD COP17 to structurally pivot from measuring the implementation gap to actively closing it? across all parties and national governments, subnational governments, cities, and sectors to turn the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework into a thriving, living reality for our planet. Erfan, may I ask you to respond first, please? Thank you. And you can take it.

Ingrid, thank you so much. Good morning, and thanks to ECLI for organizing all of us here, and thanks for Yerevan also for hosting us in this extremely important milestone in the history of biodiversity. You asked me about the one transformation from the perspective of UN-Habitat, and I want to start by highlighting a number I think we heard in several sessions yesterday, I joined only yesterday, and in many opportunities, i heard this number that we have now almost 1 million species are currently under threat with threat of extinction. And many of these species will be gone in less than one decade. So we are speaking about the Agenda 2030, we are left with only four years to achieve our targets. So the challenge now is not to have new ambitions, but our challenge now is to implement, is to deliver what we have already committed. So to identify this transformation, one transformation that you asked me to highlight, from our perspective, we need to make territorial and local implementation a core part of our global biodiversity architecture, so that every national target comes with a clear roadmap, with a clear understanding of where and by whom, and what are the needed resources to implement these targets? This is relevant, this is very relevant here in our discussion here in Yerevan, in COP17, because we have now, and you are part of the negotiation, there's an ongoing review of the global framework, so that's a very, very timely opportunity where cities and regions are gathering here also in this summit to ask a very important, very relevant question: How do we turn the global targets into real action on the ground? How can we all work on this ambitious objective. So part of the answer here is by recognizing that biodiversity loss, climate change, and land degradation all converge where? They all converge at the local level, in our cities, in our human settlements. And to close the implementation gaps, we need now to connect the global ambition much more directly to the places where implementation actually happen on the ground through our local and sub-regional government. Every national biodiversity commitment should be translated into territorial delivery pathway by asking, what does the target mean for our cities, for our regions? Who has the mandate to act for the implementation? What investment also would be required to implement these targets, and how the local action could contribute to the national and global results. In practice, this means building local and regional biodiversity into the NIPs and its national reporting processes so that the local results are counted and visible. It also can mean aligning them with NDCs, aligning them also with the land degradation neutrality targets, so delivering synergy across the three Rio conventions. That would also help to change the role of local and sub-regional governments. So cities and regions should not simply be only stakeholders that are consulted in our processes. They need to be recognized as governmental implementation partners with clear responsibilities, appropriate capacities, and direct access to finance. the biodiversity framework already gives us the foundation in target one, which calls for all areas to be covered by participatory, integrated, and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning or effective management. also, with the aim of bringing the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance close to zero. Also target three, which calls for the effective conservation and management of at least 30% of the territorial and inland water areas and of coastal and marine areas. So delivering these targets targets requires action well beyond protected areas. It calls for coordinated decisions on land use, on ecological connectivity, with local and regional government directly involved in these processes. So our challenge now is to translate these decisions about land, about housing, about infrastructure, about public spaces, water, investment, etc. Translating all these into our, how can we translate this into action? How can we build these into our cities and communities development? Here in Yerevan, Yerevan gives us or Yerevan demonstrates very important examples, a significant, first, significant protected natural areas they managed to advance or take the decision, like in the Razdan gorge, working on the conservation management plan with ADB, as mentioned by the mayor earlier in the opening, cleaning the Yerevan Lake and the Razdan gorge. All these, the partnership with IUCN, joining IUCN, all these are very important efforts. So no, the transformation that I wanted to propose, that no national biodiversity ambition without a clear pathway for territorial implementation, and thank you for the question.

So I understand that David Aburo is on his way. You know, there are several events taking place today, and people are running from one to the next. David, welcome. But I'm going to give you a breather, David. I'm going to ask Harriet to take our question. So Harriet, if you can go next. And just to remind Harriet, and for David's perspective, it's really that one thing that we have to do to get the global structural transformation around so that we can meet our targets and save our planet and our people. Harriet, over to you.

Thank you, Ingrid, and thank you very much for your question, but especially thank you ICLEI Regions 4 and the other organizers, and of course, our very generous hosts. for holding this summit and for inviting me to participate. It's a real pleasure and honor to be with you today. Now, of course, the question that you ask is central to everything that is going on at COP17. And I think it's a question that feels kind of even more pressing as we're facing the kind of political winds that we feel on our everyday lives, and of course, in all of the decisions that you are all having to make every day. And I realize there's a privilege in being an academic in this context, and I get to view this process slightly from the outside. But I want to recall, and I hope I'm not gonna steal David's thunder 'cause I was supposed to come after you, so I would've adjusted this. But I want to recall that one of the key findings from the first transformative change assessment is that it's not only the speed of change that matters, as much as its quality and direction. And so the transformative change that I wanna propose is not actually a process of change, but it's an object, and I will get to that. So, in other words, while the changes that we face are, of course, urgent, that doesn't mean that we need to be fast in our response. And I know that might sound a bit contradictory, but I'm sure you've all heard the parable of the hare and the tortoise, that sometimes it's more about the quality and the direction of change we're taking rather than how fast we're going. So we'll want to think and focus on whether our collective direction of travel and the way we are getting there is, you know, that's what I think we need to transform. And in a report that I wrote for the ECLIPSE mechanism of the European Commission back in 2020, 21, we argued that transformative change does not need a roadmap, a clear set of instructions that puts everybody on the same path. But instead, we need a compass that helps to shape our direction, guides our action, but allows different countries, and especially different cities and subnational authorities, to get to the same direction in their own way. Because we can't all take the same path at the same rate, because we come from different starting points. So my answer to your question is that we need a new compass. So that's my transformative change object, Ingrid. And I just want to say two things that I think are important about this compass. The research that me and my team in a project called Naturescapes, and if you haven't heard of us yet, we've got several events on, including an agency organized by beavers. That's a question you want to ask me about later. But our key argument here is that any form of transformative change has to have justice at its heart. And this is also, of course, what the best transformative change report has told us. Change, as far as we can tell, cannot be transformative unless it addresses the root causes of our crisis, and central to those are issues of injustice. And those who have been struggling for justice over their land, water, and seas for centuries know this, as do those who have been fighting in cities globally for social and environmental justice in more recent times. And we need to learn from them. We need to hear from them. And we need to know that transformative change is necessarily about some form of struggle. It is about making sure that we are doing, that we are going in a direction that it has justice at its heart. But I also want to make a second, possibly less familiar argument, that every step forwards that we take, every goal that we want to achieve, we also need to look behind us. Many times in this conference so far over the last week, I've heard people say, "The problem is, i know what I want to do, but I can't do it because I'm stuck." There's something that's keeping us stuck. And so that we don't only need to focus on new innovations, new finance, new institutions, projects, and policies. We need to think about what do we have to undo to move forward. People working on the ground in subnational governments and cities know this intuitively. They're tearing up pavements, they're undoing centuries-old legislation, they're thinking about what should be the rules or the norms around returns on investment so that green infrastructure projects can get built. You know this, we're doing it. But more clearly focusing on the idea that we need to undo things to move forward, I think, is important. So that would be my transformative change, Sujat. Thank you.

Thank you. I think maybe just for time saving purposes, we all clap at the end. But thanks, Harriet. David, one thing, one minute.

Okay, thank you very much. My apologies for coming in late. The punishment is I just get one minute, but I'll try and do that from all the assessments that we have at IPBES. I've just come from talking about them, and I think, particularly in the context of subnational governments and cities, The one thing that really needs to happen for transformative change is really to enable the local. Nature and people all happen at local scales, and cities and subnational governments are two of the frameworks that really are localized, that really have their citizens or their residents and the nature that is local in front of mind. They also hopefully have tax bases and some resources that can be brought to bear, and certainly champions. and those who control a lot of resources locally, who can contribute to making sure that there is a systemic stability, I suppose, between the nature, the economic, and the societal elements that are present in those spaces. So the compass that Harriet mentioned, I think, is very important. Both our Nexus and Transformative Change Assessments provide guidance, roadmaps, toolkits, checklists for thinking about how do we move towards transformation and implementing integrated solutions. There are many different elements that need to come together, of course, but we know a lot of how it should be done, but we need the enabling conditions for it to really happen. And if we can do it at all local areas in aligned ways, then we will achieve the global targets as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Our second round of questions, and this one is to you, Elvan. You've given us a lot of rich input already. So this time I'm going to ask just from UN Habitat's perspective. What is the policy change at the urban level, particularly around financing? You talked about financing, and David mentioned the fact enabling. So what do you think is something that needs to happen to inform our infrastructure and investment decisions so they are more nature positive?

Thank you, Ingrid. It's a very important and relevant question, especially that now we are concluding this week, this COP, and preparing and counting down for COP31 on climate. Our expectation that between 2000 and 2030, we will have almost 290,000 square kilometers of natural habitat. It will be or are expected to be lost for the urban growth or because of the urban growth. which, just to make it relevant in our minds, this is almost the size of Italy or of the Philippines. So we can imagine the volume of the loss of our natural habitat. So from our perspective as the cities or the human settlement organization, biodiversity cannot remain an an environmental issue going in parallel, parallel process to our urban development. It must become part of how do we plan, how do we build, how do we finance our cities. So you asked me about the shifts from our perspective in UN-Habitat. Colleagues spoke about the shifts in policy that we emphasize, that we support. We need to have policy shift in our housing policies, urban development policies, land management policies, again, to connect our ambition, to connect our targets related to land degradation, related to biodiversity, and related to climate, because the three intersects, again, intersects in our urban areas. Also, the planning, before I go to the finance, the important shift in I want again to emphasize on this, on the critical importance of shifting our planning practices, so integrating biodiversity to shape our decisions related to land, housing, etc., and the compact cities, and maintain the informal sprawl. But when we speak about finance, finance has to follow planning, so biodiversity positive urban development. development cannot depend only on small environmental budget. Nature needs should become part of mainstreaming infrastructure and investment decisions. So the fiscal tools should be available to help us, like the ecological fiscal transfers, rewarding municipalities for protecting nature, and land value capture to reinvest in green infrastructure with safeguards so greening does not displace the people it should benefit. So the scale of the financing ambition, I will conclude here, I will conclude here, the scale of the financing ambition is significant and we the challenge to ensure that these commitments translate into accessible financing and investment pipelines, including for the municipalities. We need all to collaborate to make it implementable. Thank you, Andrea.

Thank you so much, David. Sorry, Erfan. David, the next question is to you. You referred to the nexus assessment. The big question always for local authorities is how can we use the scientific evidence to better inform decision making.

Yes, thank you. So, yeah, so we write our assessments, and particularly the Nexus assessment is directed towards this as very solutions-oriented outputs. Assessment reports are, of course, very large. They do include a lot of text, and it can be very hard for the stakeholders, practitioners to go through them. But the Nexus assessment in particular is very focused around response options. So what are actual tangible actions or responses that can be put in place in different contexts? So we hope that these are quite amenable or accessible to actors. I think they're very relevant to cities and local jurisdictions, as I mentioned before. And we also provide a roadmap to try and help guide how you would think about implementing, if you have a chosen response option, such as in wastewater management or stormwater control in a city, how might you do that using nature as a primary part of that infrastructure, and what complementary technologies might you need? A key thing is, I think, is very important, is the enabling conditions for responses and actions to be successful and to be really synergistic across the various stakeholder or actor groups involved, rather than having negative impacts on some. Having the processes in place to have the consultations, to find out what potential impacts might be, so that those are ameliorated. And in many cases, with a slight changes in policy or focus could be changed from trade-offs to synergies, so you get co-benefits. Might cost a little bit more, be a bit more complicated to implement initially, but the benefits can be tremendous further down the line. And the equity Of course, consideration in achieving this is fundamental because often the most vulnerable people or the people with least voice need to be brought into processes so that their, I guess, their needs are understood fully and their vulnerabilities are met. And I think the last thing that's particularly important in local context, or can be done in local context, is that we emphasize in the Nexus Assessment and also in Transformative Change Assessment, is the importance of common visions. How do you vision a future that people want, that you could invest in, that is nature positive and it is people positive, and delivers benefits to as many people as possible? Thank you.

Thanks, David. That was a very clear concise instruction, as it were. Harriet, this time it's your turn for a one minute. You talked a lot about the research that you've done. What is the one sort of practical hint that you can give or tip that you can give to city and subnational leaders around navigating the silos and the unhappiness around fragmentation?

Yeah, thank you, Ingrid. And it builds very much on what David just said, and there's a lot in the Nexus report to build on, because the key thing if we want integrated solutions is to have an integrated understanding of the problem. If we start lots of different solutions without an integrated problem, then we will fail immediately. But I think in the work that we're doing, it's probably the thing that I would point to in this minute that I have, is to say that at the moment, we can see a lot of attempts to bring finance together, to create blended finance, co-financing. We can see a lot of attempts to bring governance together, to create co-governance and collaboration in the governance side. But we see very few attempts which seek to develop co-financing and co-governance together. So we're developing co-financing and potentially putting it into a governance context where it's never going to work. And we see co-governance being developed with ambitions for financing that are never going to be there. And so then both of them fail. So we would be encouraging you to think about co-finance and co-governance together. And that might mean that you have to change your finance model or change your governance model so that they can come together better. And that kind of integration is probably where we first need to start. Thank you, Ingrid.

Thank you so much, and we can give them a hand of applause now, and we will take a photograph. But to my three panelists, three different perspectives, an immense amount of information and knowledge here. Thank you very much, all three of you.

Take one more with Ingrid sitting. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ingrid, and thank you to a wonderful panel. And David, I must say, your timing is impeccable. If we can, this may be a little bit of a glimpse of the impeccable timing that we have at this moment to still make a difference and get us back on track towards the Biodiversity 2030 targets. Thank you, David. Thank you, everybody. Efron, Harriet, wonderful. Now, I would like to hand the floor. I said we can't do this alone. Nobody can do this alone. We need a whole community, we need the whole world, we need all the cities and all the regions to come together and all their networks. It's my great pleasure now to hand the floor to our dear friend and colleague, Pablo Fernandez, who is the Assistant Secretary General for Partnerships at UCLG. Pablo, you are here, please come up, and you are going to moderate this session for us. to speak to local and subnational leadership, driving global change and moderate this session. Thank you very much. And I'd like to call Pablo's speakers, Nina Hashigan, who is the ambassador and founder and CEO of the Alliance of Local Leaders International. Nina and Flora Makhola who is the Deputy Director General for Biodiversity and Conservation, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa. I'm particularly pleased to invite Flora to join us up on stage here. As a fellow South African, it's important to understand the leadership that a country like South Africa from the global south is bringing to global negotiations and global platforms like this. So a warm welcome to you, Flora. And I believe the Secretary of Natural Resources for California, Wade Crawford is on his way. He's going to join us in a second. Some of us have had the pleasure to hear Wade speak very clearly yesterday about the ambitious targets that California not only sets, but also implements in the state of California. And a very warm welcome again to the mayor of Kawasaki from Japan, Norihiko Fukuda. And last but not least, the Deputy Mayor of Paris for greening of public spaces, biodiversity, and animal welfare, Aminata Niakate. I don't see Aminata here with... She's here? Oh, there she is. Welcome, welcome, please. And Wade will join us when he joins, but Pablo, with this, I hand over the floor to you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Kobi. As Kobi was saying, we are here as United Cities and Local Governments, but we speak also on behalf of the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments. And on behalf of this organized constituency, our self-organized platform for the multilateral system, we really want to praise ICLEI and Regions 4 for the convening of this summit. but as well for building the case for the future of the multilateral system. We're gonna be speaking here with different parts of our constituency, of the partnerships of local and regional governments. And as Kofi was referring, we will focus a bit on implementation. But we cannot deny where we are bringing this implementation for, where this fora is happening, and how we are going to link what we are discussing here in Yerevan with the rest of the multilateral agenda and the multilateral efforts for a common future. It has been said in the previous panels that the 2030 target is becoming closer than ever. And we have to say that 2030 is not only becoming closer, but becoming more political than ever. We are passing from the anxiety to meet the targets, not only on how we are going to report, but on a necessity to defend the targets again, to protect the common framework beyond denial, beyond some pressures of not wanting to renew the 2030 agenda, or to even question if we need to have a common sustainable development agenda. So implementation becomes political because we are not only reporting to the 2030 agenda, but we are bringing as constituency the political commitment to our common framework, including biodiversity, including climate, including land restoration, but all the targets that bring the SDGs together. We are defending them by implementing them. But as we always say, we are not mere implementers. And by this, this is a reason why we will protect spaces like this subnational summit as much as we can, because we're building our common agenda. Second, the second message that we want to bring on the face of implementation is to highlight that it is local and regional governments who are assuming the risk of implementing. And implementing the conventions is becoming a risk politically, it is a risk in terms of investment, and it is also a risk in terms of the places where we can talk freely about these matters. But we're not sharing the risk with those who are sharing the benefits of the implementation of the frameworks. And this is something that we want to bring about again, which is, we want to share as much as we can, the space with other stakeholders. We want to be coherent, and when talking from the subnational perspective, we want to bring everyone involved into the implementation. And we want to defend our common frameworks. Framework becomes a super technical word when we say it, but framework is a synonym of consents, and it's a synonym of multilateral. And this is what we want to bring about to this conversation. This is why it is called Leadership Driving Global Change. It is the leadership of local leaders, but it is also the leadership that they represent of their constituents. We will first hear in this panel from Ambassador Nina Hatchigan, as presented by Kavi, She's the CEO of the Alliance for Local Leaders International, but the ambassador represents many other spaces that we have won as constituency. She was a deputy mayor. She comes from the local sphere. Last time I saw her was in New York during the Urban 20, which is a formal engagement group of cities to the G20, convened by Mayor Mamdani and Mayor Karen Bass from Los Angeles. And it's worth saying that in North America, we have a group of partners and a group of cities that are willing to implement, and not only to implement, but to defend the multilateral spaces. And we say it in plural because there are many other multilateral spaces that we need to bring the United Nations. After the ambassador's keynote speech, we will go into our discussions with our panelists. And then we will continue with the agenda. So having said this, it is a pleasure for me to introduce Ambassador Hutchings. You have the floor.

Thank you, Pablo. Thank you, city of Yerevan, ICLEI, and Regions 4. Thank you for having me. Thank you for your leadership. Good morning. There are few things I like more than a room full of local leaders. especially when the room is in Armenia, a place that means so much to me. You are courageous, you are pragmatic, you are optimistic, and I am a true fan. What I am not is a long time expert in biodiversity, like many of you, but I wanna tell you what strikes me about this work. When cities and regions take on ambitious biodiversity projects, I am astounded by the number of different kinds of benefits that can result. Take one of my favorite examples from Sierra Leone, Freetown, the Tree Town. Hire young residents to plant and care for hundreds of thousands of trees, and you deliver economic relief for residents. You also get a reduction in carbon in the air and homes for birds and pollinators. In addition, studies have found mental health benefits from having more trees. You also bring relief from extreme heat. And last, but absolutely not least, you can prevent deadly floods. So many improvements in one single program. And that's not an accident. A city budget is a constant question of how you can do more with less. None of it can go to waste. Cities are always under-resourced. So cities and regions want each program to bring multiple benefits. Local elected leaders are also stewards of local knowledge, like which street floods, which street corners get the hottest in July, what residents need and want. Towns, cities, regions are powerful vessels for this work because they control land use, energy, zoning, and they can be nimble. A mayor can plant, restore, and protect within a single term. National governments set the targets. That matters, but mayors and governors can't afford to wait. When communities face a loss of biodiversity that impacts or will impact their residents. Responsibility will fall on their shoulders, inevitably. Local leaders can act because their legitimacy comes from residents choosing them to lead. People will protect what they helped to create. And that's democracy working at its best. Cities and regions are taking action all over the world. When Medellin planted 30 green corridors, birds and butterflies came back. The city cooled by two degrees. Respiratory illness dropped. Hundreds of jobs were created, including training for residents displaced by conflict. Or take Seoul. The city tore out an elevated highway and uncovered a buried stream. Biodiverse species returned. Nearby property values rose by nearly 50%. My home state of California removed four dams from the Klamath River, and salmon returned within days, not years, the way the scientists had expected. It also strengthens resilience to drought and is also reconnecting California Native American tribes to their ancestral waterways. Protecting nature is not separate from governing well. It is an inherent part of the job. Of course, subnationals need more resources to do this important work. But they are, as we say in the United States, a good bang for the buck. They will make the most of every dollar that they have. As we work toward global biodiversity goals for 2030, the distance between what we promise and what we deliver will be measured in the neighborhoods where those commitments become reality. There's a final reason to focus on local leaders. Sometimes they become national leaders, such as former Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, now president of Mexico. Mayor Yvonne Akye-Sawyer of Freetown, the Tree Town, we'll see if she can join these ranks and take her pragmatic and ambitious mindset with her. At Allies, my organization, we bring mayors and governors together across borders to share what works and adapt successful solutions to their own communities. including on how to navigate central government overreach. Our job is to help ideas travel so local successes become models for change around the world. Ultimately, global ambition only matters if it improves life on the ground, and that work starts in our own backyards. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your inspiring words, for your work, and also thank you for bringing the connections between these political elected officials and the mandate they have from their constituents. Excellencies, we're going to now start the panel. We're going to set a first set of questions to our panelists. We're going to hear from South Africa, from California, from Kawasaki, and from Paris. We will have a follow-up question. And I hope that this will be fitting into your agendas. The first question to all our panelists, and feel free to speak from the floor or from the podium, we have a flexible setting today, is basically, we have the global commitments, we have the convention, they are setting the direction of where we want to implement. Every context is different, every territory is different, even mandates, ways of governing, and the political agenda in each of the places that you govern have different ways of operating, but still. All of you are the closest level to the people and ultimately to deliver or not. This is in the long-term planning when emergencies are happening, and as well in terms of delivering for political mandates, for elections. So, what are you doing to connect this global ambition with local impact? How are you bringing these milestones to the life of your people? And allow me as well to ask you, and how are you politically explaining this to your constituents? not only what you are doing and why this is relevant, but saying that this comes from a global multilateral commitment, and if this is necessary or not. Allow me to start with the Deputy Director General for Biodiversity and Conservation in the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment of South Africa. Deputy Director, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, moderator, and thanks to the government of Armenia for hosting us for the COP and for the city of Yerevan for organizing this ninth summit for subnational governments. In my other professional life, I worked for the city of Johannesburg for 15 years. And I'm in a position where I have worked at subnational government, at the provincial government also, and currently I'm in the national department and the head of biodiversity and conservation. But just to explain within the South African context. that our constitution recognizes the three spheres of government as being interdependent on the one hand, but also the need for them to work together in an intergovernmental way. And therefore, local governments are an explicitly recognized structure of the governance system in South Africa also, with a specific responsibility outlined in the constitution to deliver services in an environmentally sustainable manner. And that is a very fundamental principle that the Constitution of South Africa outlines in terms of the role of local government. And therefore, in that particular context, local governments are also required to develop what are called integrated development plans, which are service delivery instruments that they use to outline their program of how they deliver services to the people within cities and municipalities. And the integrated development plans also require that a portion of that plan outlines how they are integrating biodiversity related issues within those IDPs, as we refer to them in South Africa. And therefore, in the expression of the IDPs, they will then identify biodiversity rich areas in terms of ecosystems, but also identify areas in which they need to intervene in terms of reversing the loss of biodiversity or otherwise restoring and rehabilitating ecosystems. As we know, municipalities are quite critical to the extent that the element of connectivity in biodiversity is concerned because there are municipal parks which serve a number of basic services related to health, wellness for residents of municipalities. I need to indicate that in this COP, or at least in this convention, I think subnational governments are in a very unique position because there is a specific decision that relates to the role of cities and subnational governments, and that will be in Decision 15.2 that was agreed to in Montreal, and also Decision 16.3. And in this COP, we are also negotiating a text related to an item on local which therefore says to us that subnational governments are quite critical to the extent that the implementation of the KMGBF is concerned. And for the South African delegation, we've also brought our colleagues from the South African Local Government Association who are leading the negotiation of this item, and we are encouraging other delegations to include local government delegates into their delegations also. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Deputy Director. We really count on you in the intergovernmental. You build a case on linking the local plans with specific text of the frameworks that we're negotiating. And it is difficult that we go into these technicalities to the local level, but in the end, a local plan It's similar to what we're discussing here, because they are common frameworks, they are agreements, and in the end, they are social contracts. They set the rules. And we are in a time where breaking the rules is becoming the fashion of some leaders to go about, and we need to defend these rules. And it's not because we want rules, but we want agreement, and we want agreement from the global multilateral level. to the local, and there is a way of going multilateral as well in the local. And as you said, South Africa is a great example. The South African Association of Local Government, SALGA, is a founding institution of the South African state, and we really appreciate it. And as well, as you said, Johannesburg has been an active city in the creation of the international municipal movement. Thank you, Deputy Director. I'm going now to California. This is one of the very best examples where we have as well in terms of the value of the people that you serve, Secretary. It's bigger than many countries that are negotiating here. And size and population is never an added value in terms of the value that we have to have a seat at the table, but it is in terms of the impact that we have. not only for your constituents, but the impact the state of California has for the rest of the world, in terms of your own geographical position, but as well in terms of both the inspiration that you can bring or the direction that the state of California can take has an impact transnationally. So, State Secretary for Natural Resources of California, what are you doing in terms of implementation and to connecting the global agenda? The floor is yours.

Well, it is really exciting to be here shoulder to shoulder with so many regions and cities from around the world, because simply put, it's not conceptual for us. We are on the front lines as governments protecting our people from climate emergencies now. Our governor this month established an emergency proclamation because we are facing a supercharged El Nino on top of an extended marine heat wave that is literally attacking our coastal cities. We have experienced the worst wildfires in our state's 175-year history this decade. Two millennial droughts, so-called because they're supposed to happen every thousand years, in the last 15 years. Our driest three-year period in the state's history that ended in 2022, followed one month later by probably the wettest three-week period. This is not conceptual for us. We cannot wait for year after year of negotiation among our nations. That's important, but not sufficient. So we are here to make a very clear statement that subnational governments, regions, states, provinces, cities, are essential leaders in this implementation. We are beyond setting ambition, although it's important to maintain that. We are all about the implementation. So in California, we recognize that our natural systems out of balance and are compounding these emergencies that we face. Our forests are overstocked because we have suppressed indigenous land practices for a century. Our oceans are dangerously out of balance. I was on our coast last weekend, and literally marine mammals are washing up dead from domoic acid that is driven by warming and acidifying oceans. And our cities are supercharging health crises from extreme heat because they are urban heat islands full of cement. So natural solutions, this discussion on biodiversity and nature, is essential to protecting our people now. And in California, I'm really proud that we have legally mandated requirements. They're called nature-based solution targets. to achieve a certain amount of change in our natural systems, urban greening, prescribed cultural fire to reduce the densities of our forest, that indigenous practice, restoring flood plains in our river systems that reduce flood risk and recharge our aquifers for droughts. Nature and climate are not separated. We all know that. They're two sides of the same coin, and we are living that reality in California. I am so proud that we are part in supporting ICLEI and Regions 4 and under 2, these global networks. We're not in a race against each other. We are in a race against time, and we have to help each other move further and faster. That's why we co-founded the Mediterranean Climate Action Partnership with our partners from Catalonia, 17 governments, regional governments, including Western Cape, from around the world that have Mediterranean climates, and therefore experiencing the same wildfire, drought, and extreme heat crises. And now we have this bioregional approach where we are rolling up sleeves to help each other protect our people and places more quickly and effectively. So the time is now, and our messages are maintain the ambition. that the UN and the nation states have to recognize the role of cities and regions in delivering on commitments, and to be able to build capacity and fund us for that. And that ultimately, we have to use these convenings, these COPs, almost as much as implementation accelerators. Yes, the negotiations remain important, but let’s utilize this time here in Yerevan and in subsequent COPs to move further and faster, because the world cannot wait. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Secretary. And on all the governance of emergency that you were referring, it brings a bell to the previous panel where Harriet was going, which is a new compass that we need to go about, is the justice compass. And we're tackling the implementation of all these crises, but what it is needed is that we bring the justice perspective so that we have both responsibilities, but mandates to act. Because you were referring to El Niño, to the fires, to extreme heat, but in the end, what's terrifying about this is that they have a direct impact in food systems, gender equality, education, our energy systems, and of course, they are coming from from climate change. Thank you as well for the full defense of the multilateral systems of local and regional governments and the recognitions of the efforts that we are doing. I am going now to the mayor of Kawasaki in Japan. Mayor, welcome. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you, Pablo, and thank you to ICLEI. I'm very honored to be here to share our story with all of you. But during rapid economic growth in Japan, Kawasaki actually faced some of the worst industrial pollution in the country. Our skies were dark with smog, and our rivers were heavily polluted. We were growing fast economically, but we are completely losing our connection to the nature. To fix this crisis, we didn't just rely on the government. We introduced strict regulations, but more importantly, our citizen, businesses, and local government all teamed up to fight the pollution together. Thanks to the united efforts, Kawasaki is now known as one of the leading environmental city in Japan. If there is a one big lesson we learned from that experience, it is this environmental programs cannot be solved by government alone. It really takes everyone, businesses, residents, academia, and the government working together toward a shared goal. And we believe this exact same lesson applies to today's biodiversity challenges. Through our journey of restoring the environment, we learned how crucial it is to live in harmony with nature. Today, you will see a lot of green initiatives led by our community and local businesses. But here's a challenge. Unlike traditional pollution, nature positive actions are really hard to measure. We all know they are important, but objectively tracking their actual impact is very difficult. That's exactly why we launched the Kawasaki Nature Group Global Platform. It's the first initiative of its kind in Japan. Our goal is to build a common foundation where we can actually visualize, evaluate, and monitor the value of nature and biodiversity. To make real impact, we started by getting 19 global companies operating in Kawasaki on board. These companies represent major sectors like energy, manufacturing, tech, real estate, and finance. Together, they have a combined annual business activities of about 320 billion US dollars. By partnering with companies that have this kind of economic weight, we are hoping to spread this change across entire industries and eventually throughout society. By making the value of data visible and measurable, we can turn global goal into real and concrete action at local level. Through this initiative, we want to create sustainable cycle where both our nature and our city can thrive together. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mayor. A very, very interesting point.

We are trying to rethink in other intergovernmental processes if GDP is still the way that we are valuing our progress, and if it's still relevant that we only have GDP for bankability and assessing this. Bringing the value of nature and biodiversity adds to the economy and the way that we are bringing the economy of climate change, the economy of biodiversity. And as well, it will help us to rethink, as I was saying at the beginning, risk. who is assuming risk, who is not assuming it, who's sharing benefits, and what benefits look like. We will try to bring this to the loss and damages conversation in Turkey in the coming weeks for the COP. To close this first set of questions, I'm going now to the Deputy Mayor of Paris. She has a fantastic portfolio before her. She's the Deputy Mayor for greening public spaces, biodiversity, and animal welfare in the capital city of France. Deputy Mayor, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Pablo. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to be here and to speak in front of you all. I also do believe that the goal of the Global Biodiversity Framework can only be achieved if they are translated into local policies and concrete actions. In Paris, we have chosen to integrate biodiversity into all the key tools that shape our city: our biodiversity plan, our climate plan, and our urban local plan. We are transforming public spaces to make more room for nature by planting trees, removing paving, by restoring natural spaces and creating ecological corridors. We are also developing practical solutions such as our Oasis schoolyards, which provide children with greener spaces that are better adapted to extreme heat. And we are also working to measure our impact more efficiently. Paris is actually assessing its biodiversity footprint to better account for nature and public decision making. For us, translating global ambition into local impact means delivering visible, tangible changes in people's daily lives. Local and subnational governments are on the front line of implementation. We bear significant responsibility for achieving the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework, yet our financial resources are often insufficient to meet these responsibilities. local governments cannot be expected to deliver on global commitments without adequate funding. This is why local and subnational governments should have direct access to international funding without having to rely on national governments as intermediaries. Ultimately, closing the gap between global ambition and local action means giving cities the resources they need to deliver results on the ground. Only then can we turn the ambitions of the Global Biodiversity Framework into meaningful results for nature and also for the people we serve. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor. It's useful to build a link between public services into public space and how this has a direct impact if we have nature-based solutions on everyday essentials. And we're calling everyday essentials nothing else but human rights. We're trying to change the world so that we are not as uncomfortable when talking straightforward about human rights, but it is about our everyday essentials. And this is the impact that we have on nature-based solutions, public spaces. And second, in terms of bankability, I really want to talk about this as well, which is We need facility funds and we need guarantees in terms of how the economics of today are done. And this is a pending and an added value. We have the Seville commitment from Finance for Development that we are trying to bring about, but still a lot of work to done ahead. I'm going for the second round of questions. I'm going to the Deputy Director of South Africa. You already started telling us how you're working with local and regional governments to create the enabling environment for cities to deliver on the specifically on biodiversity commitments. If you can elaborate more on this, Deputy Director, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you very much for that. On the one level, it's about the fact that in South Africa, we are mandated to be as inclusive as possible. So inclusive participatory planning is entrenched in our legislation, and therefore, in that context, what government does is to ensure that we do it in consultation and in partnership with the people. That is the first. The second thing is that Other levels of government, national government and provincial government, are also required to support local government in delivering their mandates. And therefore, within that context, within the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and Environment, we have developed a toolkit which assists municipalities in providing practical guidance in how they can integrate biodiversity and ecosystem within their planning and delivery instruments also. This is to ensure that our cities and municipalities are able to protect the ecological infrastructure that is in place and ensure that within the context of facing the challenges of climate change, that they develop climate adaptation and mitigation plans, but also at the same time express the role of biodiversity within what are called bio regional plans. And these bio regional plans, essentially, they integrate ecosystem priority areas and ensure that the ecosystem support areas continue to provide ecosystem services also. But also, municipalities are required to ensure that they implement nature-based solutions. This can include the improvement of open spaces in terms of providing municipal parks, and such municipal parks also serve as ecological support areas, but also ensuring that they develop mechanisms for cooling. I had reference to urban heat. Also, we are also explained El Nino in South Africa. My mother was complaining the other day that it's too hot, I must come back home. I don't know how I'm going to help her. But cities also, they plant trees, they develop municipal parks, et cetera. But the role of digital government need also to provide what is called evidence-based data. South Africa is one of the countries in which we undertake systemic national biodiversity assessments, which are able to indicate to us what is the state of biodiversity, which are the biomes and ecosystems that are of concern. And we know that within our context that we are facing the threat of alien invasive plants, also that our wetlands and aquatic systems are highly threatened, and therefore we need to work with municipalities and cities in ecosystem restoration initiatives. Also. My own department runs what is called an environmental programs, and that particular program is where we support municipalities directly in the implementation of coastal resilience and coastal restoration, estuaries management protection, especially for coastal municipalities. We are also undertaking wetland restoration and land restoration, waste and pollution management. Also, we have a very comprehensive program that then also manages the threat of fire. One of our ecosystem, the Fainbos, is very to the threat of fire also. And therefore, within our context, I'm just demonstrating that in actual fact, we are able to demonstrate that we are integrating across the Rio Convention. So it's not only about the UN CBD, even within the UN CCD, and also within the UNFCCC, not withstanding the fact that within the UNFCCC system that local governments are not recognized, but within our context, We have recognized that to the extent that most of our municipalities in South Africa have got the climate response plans in place also. Just lastly, to indicate that it's not only about the specific program, but it's also about institutionalization. And institutionalization within our context means that We have what are called working groups. We have a working group on biodiversity in which municipalities are participating at a technical level and even at a political level, where decision making on biodiversity related matters is made. And therefore, this points to stronger policy coherence at all levels, national, provincial, and local government, to ensure that we deliver on the constitutional mandate of ensuring that local governments deliver in an environmentally sustainable manner.

Thank you very much, Deputy Director, for this full approach. I'm going now back to California. California has been a leader in advancing ambitious environmental action at the subnational level. Secretary, can you please share how are you translating its biodiversity and climate commitment into action on the ground beyond the emergency, and how this experience can help to inspire and enable other subnational, and I would include other governments, including national, to meet the targets agreed in the three Rio Conventions? The floor is yours.

Yes, so I would first observe that we are at a moment in time that we have to connect these conversations to the real lives of people. We've heard from our colleagues that this conversation feels, you know, that's happening at the convention level, can feel a million miles or kilometers away from real people. So we are focused in California in helping people understand how their everyday lives are impacted by this work. Great example, I've heard a lot this week about your work in Paris on the pocket parks and on the urban greening. People have to feel this. So as it relates to our climate action and our biodiversity action, we have the big ambitious targets, carbon neutrality, pollution reduction, biodiversity, and 30 by 30, which we're holding ourselves accountable for. And we're making the progress in ways that people can feel and understand. So it's bringing shade to a schoolyard in urban Los Angeles so that the kids can be outside under shade as temperatures rise. expanding our open space in communities that actually give people an opportunity to get outdoors, particularly in those communities that don't have the privilege of a lot of parks. So the good news, I think, from California is we've set ambitious targets. We can demonstrate quantitatively that we're meeting them. We've reduced pollution by over 20%. Our GDP is up by 80%. We've increased by 1.5 million hectares, the protected areas. But I never go into a community with those types of data, because it doesn't really matter to people that are living their lives and putting food on the table and just want safe places for their families and a positive future. So I think the work here is to figure out, yes, how we set these targets and help each other meet them. And then, importantly, at this moment in time, when certain leaders are denying climate change or attacking science or sowing distrust in multilateralism, that we show people why this is essential right now.

Thank you very much, Secretary. And this is a call to ministers and to national governments that you can count on the closest level of government to the people to build a case on what we are discussing here. It is easier for a governor or a mayor to translate what we are discussing here into the political message for their constituents than for other stakeholders, including not only national governments, but even business and civil society count on this constituency, not only to translate into implementation, but to translate into political messages what we are technically discussing. causing here. It has taken a lot of years and decades to bring climate change into the media. We need to protect that it is in the good space and that it's not targeted. Thank you very much, Secretary. I'm going now to the mayor. Mayor, Kawasaki is a highly industrialized city. How are you demonstrating that industrial development, climate action, and biodiversity conversation can be pursued together? And what lessons can you share to other cities? It has to do a bit of what we are discussing, which is how can we build a case that biodiversity can join the development of the private sector and particularly innovation in industry? The floor is yours.

Thank you. Yes, looking back at Kawasaki's experience overcoming pollution, I believe there are two key lessons here. First, we need action upscale. To make a real difference, we have to engage organization that have significant economic influence. Large companies have the power to create massive social impact, whether it's through their daily operations, their supply chains, investments, and how they engage with local communities. That's exactly why the Kawasaki Nature Loop global platform focuses on bringing together companies with global operations. Our goal is not just to get a high number of participants. We want to create change on scale, big enough to influence entire industries and society as a whole. The second lesson is about trust. We absolutely have to build a credible platform that brings together government, academia, and independent experts. A single company simply cannot assess the value of biodiversity on its own. Without shared standards and solid science, it's very hard to trust the process or that result. Biodiversity assessment needs shared methodologies, strong scientific evidence, and transparent dialogue. By bringing government, businesses, universities, and experts to the same table, we are making these assessments more credible. At the same time, we are aligning our local efforts with a global push for a nature-positive future. This approach allows us to visualize, measure, and monitor the value of nature in a way that is both trustworthy and practical. Most importantly, we see this initiative becoming a common language, a way for stakeholders from totally different backgrounds to work together towards the exact same goal. Moving forward, we dearly hope to share what we learn with other cities worldwide and help turn the power of industry into a driving force for a nature-positive future. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mayor. And it's what you're saying, which is it gives credibility as well. And this is the only way of going about. Pollution is a word tend to link with industrialization, and we need to build a case and to make credible actions that it's not particularly linked. I'm from Mexico City. I was born in the 90s, and pollution was everywhere in my city. And now we have a cleaner city. It's happening the same in Japan, in China, in Spain. You hear about Bilbao. It has totally changed from a super polluted port into a cultural city. So it's credibility what you're referring. Thank you for this. And let's take back the actions. And as I said, in the 90s, we were born here about the Kyoto Protocol and pollution. in our schools, and now we have delivered. It takes a bit of longer term, but thank you for these experiences. We're going back to Europe with Paris. Deputy Mayor, Paris has been using urban planning, public spaces, and infrastructure to advance climate and biodiversity action. I have this in my note, but I mean, we have seen the transformation of Paris. It's very impressive to see. What opportunities do you see for cities to use these everyday decisions to create a healthier, more resilient, and nature-positive urban environment?

Thank you, Pablo. I do think that cities are making decisions that shape climate and biodiversity all together every single day. Every street, school, and every public space is in fact an opportunity to restore nature and make our cities more climate resilient. In Paris, we are taking action on at least three fronts. First, cities have a major opportunity to restore nature by making urban spaces greener and better connected. Since 2020, Paris has planted more than 150,000 trees. This transformation has also involved removing more than 30,000 parking spaces in the recent years. We are now trying to move beyond individual planting projects towards a more connected approach of nature by developing, for instance, ecological corridors and planting more indigenous trees which are also habitat for biodiversity. Second, we are making our city more resilient to climate change, greening streets, removing paving, And restoring healthy source helps tackle heat waves while supporting biodiversity. Our rivers are also playing a role. The Seine can help cool the city during hot weather and making swimming possible again, show how improving water quality can benefit both people and nature. Today, we can swim in the Seine after over a century of prohibition, and around 30 fish species live in the Seine compared with just three in the '70s. So this transformation must involve everyone. Women, young people, and residents of working class neighborhoods must have a voice in shaping their city and benefit from urban nature. In Paris, we engage residents through community gardens, greening permits, and public consultation, while working with civil society, researchers, and businesses. But I have to say, if you allow me, that turning this ambition into reality requires more than just good planning and local commitment, it also requires the right political choices. I think that we cannot protect nature with one hand while funding its destruction with the other hand. And this is precisely the contradiction we need to address. Public money must be redirected away from activities that harm biodiversity and towards nature restoration, urban nature, and community-led initiatives. Otherwise, the GBF commitments, our commitments, will remain just words on paper. But if we align our funding with ambitions and local communities to act, we can turn our commitment into real and lasting change for nature. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor. And well, it's public services, but co-governed public services that they are open to bring everyone on board. And I really appreciate that you bring the political choices aspect, which has to do with decisions. There are always trade-offs. We need to balance between different powers, between different opinions, and this is the multilateral system. And we talk about the multilateral system as a super abstract concept, but it is nothing else than the democratic response to living together. It is the democratic response to facilitating that people have better lives in our times. That's what we say when we defend these spaces, when we defend that everyone needs to be at the table. This is what we say, that we want to democratize the intergovernmental process by bringing everyone on board, and of course, the constituency of local and regional governments. But we want to bring everyone on board because we want to transform people's lives for better, nothing else. It's not that we want a space because of political reasons. We want it because we are closer to constituents. We're closing this panel. It is fantastic. We really want to bring this forward and to continue the conversations. Please allow me to give one final word to Ambassador Hachigian before giving back the floor to the Deputy Secretary General of ICLEI, and with this, we will close the panel. Ambassador de Fleur is yours.

Thank you, Pablo. And I just want to emphasize really what you've just said, which is that all the speakers have talked about how you need to bring real people into the decision making and into the implementation if you want to be successful. And at the end of the day, it's about making their lives better in a way that they can feel and see, because then they will want to go forward with more ambitious biodiversity. to emphasize that the political system that enables this is democracy, and that's democracy at the local level, it's democracy at the national level, that values individual rights, that values individual decisions, and that gives power to the people to choose leaders who will go forward with these ambitious biodiversity targets. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. I'm giving back the floor now to Kobi Brand, Deputy Secretary General of ICLEI. Kobi, thank you very much.

Well, I just say, Pablo, please look at the camera over there for a group photo for the panel, please. Thank you very much. That way. I just need to, Pablo, you and I, we come a long way between our sister city networks, and I want to say that I can hear the excitement in your voice because is this not multi-level governance? Really, yeah. I mean, what was said and the depth of the discussion is fantastic. that just the fact that we have parties, states, cities here together talking seamlessly about governance, being so aligned in what you're saying, this is what organizations like ICLEI and UCLG and many others regions for, we all strive for this conversation to happen in these very halls. So you're making history and you're making us very proud. Thank you very, very much to a fantastic panel. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to say that on this high note, we will see more of some of these amazing speakers who can now go back to their seats, please, and enjoy a cultural performance brought to us by the city of Yerevan. I'll tell you more about it, but I want to also let you just in on one or two logistical notes as we thank these amazing speakers and panelists. I want you to, for those who don't know Jade, Jade, can you just stand up, please, and maybe just come up to the stage so that everybody can see Jade. Please, when we break for lunch, she deserves a big applause. we break for lunch, she's also the person who can give you special tickets that will allow you into a very special event this evening, the reception hosted kindly by the mayor of Yerevan in a very amazing setting. I've seen it, don't miss it, but she has the ticket that will get you in there. Make sure you grab one from her or two. And then I also want to say that we're going to get this performance now. I'll tell you more about it, but this afternoon we'll see at least Secretary, State Secretary Crawford up here again. He hasn't quite finished his duties today for us. He's going to tackle with many others the very, very pertinent issue of finance. How do we finance this ambition at the local level? What is possible? And how do we go about it? So don't miss that finance session after lunch. And then also in the course of the afternoon, we will be making There will be some really amazing new, exciting announcements made for what lies ahead, where this summit takes us into further inspired action. I'm looking forward to some of those rewards that will be handed out and some of those new initiatives that are going to be announced here for the first time on this very stage. So now it is my honor to also let you know that we are going to see a short performance, cultural performance, a local one, provided by the city of Yerevan, where we warmly welcome the handbell ensemble of Yerevan Sayat Nova Music School. After that, you are then free to go and refresh, take a break, take a walk, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy some refreshments, but be back here at 1:00 o'clock, 1300, because we will continue with a fantastic afternoon. And I want to just give a big shout out specifically to the parties. I we note South Africa is in the room, but we also note Singapore in the room and many others that have that are in and out of these rooms today. Uh, we are doing this with the parties. And We cannot do this without you. We need, as Secretary Crawford said, yes, these discussions are important, yet they're not enough. We need each other. But what you do at these COPs, at this Biodiversity COP, at the Climate COP, at the COP in Ulaanbaatar earlier this year, that is where history is made. We are part of that puzzle, an important part of the puzzle, but we wish you all the strength and perseverance with your negotiations. Let's make this COP count, and you can count on us to be there to help deliver. We're going to figure out how financially after lunch we're going to do that. But first of all now, and then you are welcome to break for lunch and be back here at 1:00. Let's enjoy this beautiful ensemble performance given to us. Thank you.

Goodbye.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes. I work with people for 10 years. That's a black hole. We are working on it.

Yes.

Play song: Aaj Ki Party.

Ladies and gentlemen, can I ask everyone to start taking their seats so that we can begin in a minute or two? Thank you. Yes. Right, I think we're going to begin. Welcome back, everyone. I hope you've enjoyed your lunch and you managed to get a little bit of sun. Please settle in and make yourselves comfortable. We've got a great program this afternoon. I'm Kate Strawn. I'm one of the directors at ICLEI, and I'm responsible for the interface between climate change and biodiversity. And I'll be moderating the next panel and guiding us through the rest of the afternoon. This morning has really brought us back to a simple question, and that is, what will it take to turn our commitments into action that people can see and feel? And this afternoon, we're gonna begin with finance. The three Rio Conventions, of course, as we know, address biodiversity, climate change, and land degradation. In our cities and regions, these issues meet in the same space. A restored wetland can support wildlife, protect water, and reduce flood risk. Our investment decisions need to recognize these connections. So please join me in welcoming our next panelists. We have Valerie Hickey, Director of Environment at the World Bank. Laziza Zarbi-Ruva, the Country Director for Armenia, Asian Development Bank; Gian Piero Nacci, Managing Director for Climate Strategy and Delivery at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Morkoem Tambe, who's a Principal for Climate and Nature and Finance Specialist at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. At COP15, governments adopted a plan of action specifically for cities and subnational governments. It calls for their involvement in national biodiversity plans and for support to deliver locally. So our finance discussion is about making that support practical. Thank you each for joining me. For a city, finance becomes real when it helps protect a river, restore a neighborhood, or keep services working through a crisis. And that is the particular focus of our conversation this afternoon. We will begin with one question for everyone, and then I'm going to come back for a second round with a more specific question for each of you, if that's all right. So I'm going to start with the question, and the question is for each of you, is Where do you see the greatest opportunities to strengthen and scale public finance and private investment for cities and regions so they can accelerate transformative action on biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development? Valerie May, I start with you?

Thank you so very much, Kate, and it's an absolute pleasure to be here talking about biodiversity and the importance of cities, not just because of their footprint, of course, but because they are the consumer base for everything that nature produces. And so for us, we see the opportunity in two places, in many places, but let me mention two. The first is the importance of making nature visible. to subnational governments and cities, and making sure that there are not obvious low-hanging fruit that are missed opportunities. And the example we always use is procurement. Cities spend an enormous amount of money through procurement, and yet often nature is invisible or unable to be procured, whether it's nature-based solutions. or nature smart products and services. And so really helping cities understand the power of procurement and making nature visible in that system. So that's one. The second place we see a huge opportunity is around the fact that cities have an enormous opportunity to showcase how valuable nature-based solutions are for bigger problems. Think about heat islands and how important nature and trees and urban parks are to reduce heat, which we know is becoming a huge problem for cities, not just in terms of the people who are walking around those cities, but ensuring those people can stay at work and that the infrastructure works. So thinking about how cities can show proof of concept. that nature-based solutions are available and they are highly affordable and better yet, highly effective at solving problems that cities have that aren't necessarily problems that nature created. Thank you.

Thank you, Valerie. And I think those two points are really great around making nature visible in procurement and cities really showcasing the value of nature-based solutions for solving our bigger problems. Laziza, where do you see the greatest opportunities?

First of all, thank you very much, Kate and Ingrid, for invitation to this panel and a very warm welcome to our participants to Yerevan. I think I have a right to say that since I'm based here in Yerevan. I'm country director for Asian Development Bank, though not very long, a few months I'm here. I think there is an echo, so maybe even those who listening in English, you may want to use your headphones for clearer sound. So just very quickly, our partnership of ADB with Yerevan Municipality goes way back to 2011, and we invested in urban infrastructure. We are now working on mobility, smart mobility, and all that. And we are moving towards from just project to project financing to more cohesive, integrated approach, which covers also policies, procedures, software, and so on. And just to give you an example, just few kilometers from here, the Harsdan Gorge, it's about 14 kilometers gorge that runs through the Yerevan city down to Lake Yerevan. And it was the city's natural backbone, which was sort of dilapidated asset. And the mayor of Yerevan, in cooperation with ADB, asked for what can be done. So we, as a bank, we provided a 1.2 million technical assistance grant, which through time led to a pipeline of projects, investable projects. And this groundwork is exactly what I wanted to highlight, because without it, the finance for nature will not happen. And if you can allow me, Kate, just to mention three things which are very important from my point of view, from ADB's point of view. First, it's evidence. It's very important to have good data to make good, sound analytical decisions. And with that, for this gorge and Dalma Gardens, Lake Yerevan, we are doing a digital twin of the river, the lake, and drainage so that municipality and experts could do various scenarios and come up with good, sound decisions. Second point are the rules. very important to have good rules, procedures, and I have to commend here the Yerevan municipality, because the Yerevan City Council just a few days ago, on 13th of October, designated the Hrazdan Gorge as a protected landscape. And if I understand correctly, this is the first municipality in Armenia to designate locally from not on the kind of national level, but from the local perspective, the protected area. And ADB, we are supporting the management plan, including how the costing, the maintenance of this from year to year can take place. And of course, it is people. People are in the middle of this whole story, communities, livelihoods, and of course, heritage. We are, after all, in Armenia with thousands years of culture, history. all sorts of artifacts and so on, and those things absolutely need to be mapped and protected, so there are no surprises later. So to sum up, this 15 years partnership with Yerevan demonstrated how the large scale infrastructure financing, something sizable, something meaningful, can start with a bit more modest grant financing, because project preparations are very important. And we probably will come up to that a bit later in the discussion. So that's something I wanted to share at the beginning. Thank you.

Thank you so much, and thank you so much for highlighting the importance of groundwork and what this really involves. Jean-Pierre, may we hear your perspective?

Thank you very much, Kate, and good afternoon, everybody. It's really a pleasure being here in this beautiful city, in this beautiful setting. And actually, I have the gavel here. I really feel empowered. I may use it, so don't be surprised if I do. It's very tempting, I can tell you. My colleagues, Valerie and Leziza, mentioned some very, very important points that are quite core also to the way BIRD is looking at opportunities. I think the big challenge is about turning these opportunities into bankable projects. The fact that nature-related investments, climate-related investments actually generate economic returns and have a fast economic payback. I think is well known by now. The problem is how to turn these economic opportunities in commercial opportunity. That's the challenge. And this is where the groundwork that also was mentioning is so important. How to empower cities, how to not only try to make them responsible for the prioritization, but also providing the tools to take investment decisions. This is what at DBRD we have been doing for several years. We've been financing projects in the municipal sector since our institution was set up back in 1991. But in the last 10 years, we have been trying to apply a bit more structured model into prioritizing investments, green investments at the city level. So we've launched a program called Green Cities, not very imaginative title, but still, i think it says what we do. And the main focus is about providing the tools for cities, A, to understand where they can improve performance. So it's the diagnostic sort of tools that allow them to understand where performance, how they perform along a number of indicators, but also where actually they can maximize, optimize the socioeconomic benefits of interventions. But also looking at both the policy roadblocks, so identifying what regulatory interventions can be introduced to unlock investments. And of course, very much in line with also what Yezid mentioned before, is how to create a pipeline of bankable projects. And this is a bit the main tool we have. Under this program, we finance over 60 cities, over EUR5 billion of investments. So we're talking a very substantial program, including Yerevan. Yerevan is one of the first green cities in our program. I'll mention one example of a project that really tried to combine economic benefit for the city with an environmental and nature-related outcomes. It's a project in Chisinau, capital of Moldova, is a 20 million euro loan to help the city addressing the chronic issue of flooding coming from the river that crossed the city. So this project where EBRD, EIB, using a grant from the Green Climate Fund, helped not only introducing interventions to improve flood management, but also creating economic opportunities by re-converting, restoring areas that were not economically active, so creating space for recreational activities. So at the same time, combining an environmental outcome, a nature-related improvement with an economic outcome. So this is an example of how to bring together different elements. And as I mentioned before, it's not only about the the environmental benefits, but also how to create economic activity out of nature-related investments.

Thank you so much, Jean-Pierre. And I think you talked about turning those opportunities into bankable projects. And I think you also posed a question that many of us are asking on a daily basis, and that is, how do we empower cities and subnational governments and provide them with the necessary tools to do this? I'm now going to turn to Moko. Where do you see the greatest opportunities?

So from the Development Bank of Southern Africa's perspective, the fundamental challenge that we are observing is that there isn't necessarily lack of ambition from our African cities. There isn't absence or insufficient availability of financing, but rather the disconnect between the local development priorities, the institutional capacity within our cities, and the availability of investment-ready projects, as well as availability of suitably structured financial instruments. So from the DBSS side, we believe that there's a need for financial institutions to shift from being just mere financiers, but to becoming partners in developing investment pipelines. And from our experiences, we have learned that Municipalities need to be supported and we need to walk the journey with them from when they plan, from when they develop their infrastructure plans to when they develop feasibility studies to when we then provide mainstream financing. And even after we've made financing available, we still need to support them in terms of implementing projects. Sometimes we find that our cities, even when financing has been made available, there isn't capacity to actually implement projects. So at the DBSA, we've got a team of engineers that work with our cities to actually implement projects and ensure that we bring those projects to life. So lack of technical capacity is a big thing. Also indicate that project preparation, we've observed this to be quite important when it comes to our cities. Hence, we have got a number of programs and projects specifically geared to support municipalities in order to build capacity to bring ideas to bring ideas and to develop them into investable facilities. And many of the projects that we're seeing in our regions, they are not really best suited for traditional financing instruments. Normal loans, as we know them, they're not really conducive for the type of instruments. Therefore, we need to structure customized blended finance instruments that are patient, that also integrate grant funding for capacity building, that also integrate concessional financing, because most of our cities, they are not considered bankable. We are talking about cities that are located in the very remote areas and that are that are below the sub-borrowing credential. So it's very crucial for us to ensure that the facilities that we provide to them are customized to the projects on the ground, and especially when we're talking about nature positive infrastructure, where there's elements of restoration of our wetlands, rehabilitating our cashments, we really need patient funding, and we need facilities that are of a catalytic role. And our accreditation with some of the climate funds, such as the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, they help us to make this possible because we're able to access those concessional funds and grant funding that we then blend with our own resources in order to provide blended financing mechanisms that are based aligned with the projects on the ground. Thanks.

Thank you, Moko. And I think you touched on a good point that we've heard it so much the last few days around there's not a lack of ambition, but it really is about how we can support local governments along the whole journey from a local priority to a project that can receive finance and then ultimately be maintained. And I think that's a nice segment into our next questions, and we now are going to look a little bit more closely at how institutions can help make that journey possible. So, Valerie, I'm going to start with you again. And the World Bank works across national and subnational levels and has significant experience supporting cities and governments from around the world to develop investment-ready projects. Moving ahead, how will the World Bank support cities in taking local biodiversity action that contributes towards global biodiversity targets?

Thank you very much, Kate. And we do this largely through three sets of pipes, always listening to what the cities want and always being client driven. And I think that's important for us, and both listening to what the municipalities themselves want or the subnational governments, but also what the private sector in those cities want, so that we can mobilize both our our public sector investment balance sheet, but also our private sector investment balance sheet. And so we start by thinking about how we're going to use our own money, which is important. And so we do that largely in three ways. The first is how we can use our money to incentivize cities to change policies or to make sure that they are visible in national policies. This was the case, for example, in Mexico, where urban forestry was not considered forestry under national law. And so figuring out how to make those changes so that the cities who are managing enormous tracts of forest had the same access to support, to financing that everybody else did and had to play by the same rules. But it's also figuring out how to support spatial planning. We know, particularly in regions like Africa, there is an enormous acceleration in urbanization. in the growth of secondary cities and trying to ensure that we can provide policy support to get that planning right, because everything else is downstream of planning, particularly when it comes to nature, both in terms of benefits for the planet and ensuring new cities aren't destroying nature, but also ensuring

Nature can be taken advantage of to support people and businesses in those cities. The second thing we do when it comes to our own money, of course, is direct investments in nature finance. We are supporting lots of cities to be able to invest in their urban parks, to be able to invest in urban wetlands. But we're also investing in places outside of cities that have a direct impact on cities. This is where, for example, investing in Mongolia's desertification is helping reduce air pollution in Beijing, the same as supporting investing in the Aral Sea and ensuring that the desertification and degradation of the Aral Sea basin is reduced, is helping reduce air pollution in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan. And so it's important that we think about investing in nature, not just within city boundaries. But in those places where it's degradation or loss is leading to real problems in cities. And the third place is really thinking through how can we help cities identify, we're investing in a nature-based solution, is their most affordable choice? Because cities, like everybody else, are broke, they're awash in debt, they're trying to figure out how to have more impact on less money. And we actually, between 2012 and 2024, we financed about 250 projects that substituted hard infrastructure with nature-based solutions, benefited almost 10 million people, and had the secondary benefit of restoring and conserving over a million hectares within cities. So that's the first, we think about how we use our own money. But we also wanna make sure that we're readying, and you heard this from everybody else on the panel, readying cities and subnational governments to use other people's money. And so this means we have something called the City Climate Finance Gap Fund, where we help cities build bankable projects, just as Gianpiero was talking about, so they can access climate finance. We have something called the NBS Opportunity Scan, which is a way of helping cities identify across their infrastructure portfolio where it would be cheaper for them to invest in a nature-based solution and what that looks like. But we're also working to ensure that cities have the right operating environment and the right set of laws so they can attract, in particular, mobilize private capital. But it also means making sure cities have in place the right policies and procedures so they can access bond markets when they are, in fact, credit worthy and able to do that, which of course we know isn't the case for every city or even most cities, but also so that they can attract more public fiscal transfers from central government or from federal government, figuring out how to make that work and strengthen their ability to tap those funds when they're nature related. So that's part of how we think about ensuring, as Aziza said, that cities have the information and the incentive so they can mobilize private capital, but also make best use of fiscal transfers that they're eligible for. But the third thing we do beyond making sure we're maximizing our own money and value for money from our own balance sheets, that we're helping cities access money from everywhere else and make best use of it, is we're making sure that cities have access to learning, because there are so many cities, and cities are sandboxes. They are the laboratories that are trying things, because cities are so close to their citizens, they have to solve problems. They can't sit back and puzzle over them for a long time. So we're seeing huge innovations and answers coming out of cities. We want to make sure they're connected. And that's why we're so proud of the partnership we have with ICLEI, of course, our global program for sustainable cities works with ICLEI so that we can really begin to share those experiences and look and identify who's doing what well, and not just talking about what was done, but how it was done and the conditions under which particular innovations worked. Because we also know cities being on the front lines of having to manage debt and fewer fiscal resources have to find value for money, can't afford to test and innovate for its own sake. We have to reduce the risk for first movers and ensure they're getting that recipe. And of course, we also work with ICLEI and other partners like UNEP, WRI, IUCN, C40, WBCSD on the Urban Nature Program. which is really thinking through how can we together ensure that we're helping cities invest in the natural capital that they have that is such an important part of their success. So those are the three big sets of pipes that we're using to really make sure cities have what they need so that they can deliver results for the planet and for their people.

Thank you, valerie. I'm preparing a project. is part of implementation too, and I think you've very touched on that important point that cities need the skills and support to take those first steps. And sometimes that is about looking inwards and looking at one's own policies, laws, and regulations to be able to take those first steps. So thank you so much. Laziza, many cities in Asia are experiencing rapid urbanization alongside increasing climate and biodiversity pressures. As we race towards 2030, how will ADB implement its focus on mainstreaming nature-positive investment at the urban and subnational scale to support cities and subnational governments as they face the triple planetary crisis?

You said nature-positive investments, Kate, and in Asian Development Bank, as we approach this 2030 period, we really see it not as a separate environmental agenda, but really as a core element of sustainable urban development. And with that in view, we are switching now. For many years, of course, investments in urban infrastructure really focused primarily on transport, energy systems, water supply, drainage, and housing also. And of course, these remain as critical priorities. But more often, the same with World Bank, the same with our colleagues in EBRD, we really see that urban forests, wetlands, rivers, green spaces, they do provide services. And those services support resilience, public health, and of course, economic productivity and quality of life as well. So how in ADB we do it in practical terms? So first, we integrate urban nature into urban planning. So it's not kind of separate processes anymore. And from the early stages of project development. One example in Vietnam, in the city of Hu, for example, with support of Global Environmental Fund, ATP updated national standards for river restoration and embankment, and that also helped nature-based solutions. The second way we in ADB are tackling this issue is helping cities to strengthen their institutional foundations, and I already mentioned that earlier, and technical foundations. Another example from Asia, in India, we have this Chennai City Partnership through which we helped integrated urban planning, climate risk assessment, so all sorts of analytical work that will help, and they're already helping the city, its ability, its capacity to do proper identification of risks, their assessments, and of course to evaluate trade-offs and to develop resilient and nature-positive investments. And here we have, of course, in our auditorium a lot of people from municipalities. We have mayor of from the country, which is very close to my heart because ADB is based in the Philippines. We have Mayor of Siargao City here. So I understand ADB is also working with that city on sustainable urban development for, of course, tourism development as well. So this institutional technical foundations work is very important, obviously. And the third point is, I think this is what Valerie also mentioned, is as development institutions we are helping to mobilize greater volumes of finance for nature-positive urban investments. And Muhu, in her first intervention, also mentioned the need for innovative financial instruments. So in ADB, we have something called ADB's Nature Solutions Finance Hub. So this is a relatively new instrument. And here in the audience, we have also our team from Asian Development Bank who are focal point for this hub for financing. So all of you are welcome to go and talk separately after this session on what this finance hub is doing for cities and for bringing public and private investments while delivering biodiversity, climate, and social outcomes. I just also wanted to say, Kate, that you mentioned something interesting. It's not lack of ambition that we are dealing with, right? I mean, all mayors, all municipalities, you have good views and strategic views on development of your cities, towns. But it's really what we see, at least in ADB, maybe insufficient number of well-prepared, bankable projects when they come to us for financing. So at the local level, You are the ones who are dealing with floodings, with heat stress, with air pollutions, and whatnot, degradation of overall urban ecosystems. So by embedding, first of all, nature into urban planning, this is what I mentioned. strengthening local capacity and mobilizing innovative finance, this is what Jan-Pero said also in MUCO, in this panel already, I think we can help cities become powerful drivers of economic prosperity and to deal with climate resilience, with biodiversity conservation. And of course, at the very end, this is why we are all here in this business, is to improve quality of life of people. of our developing countries, member countries. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And you really touched on an important point that we need nature to be part of everyday investment decisions in our cities. This is including decisions about housing. I think you said transport and water. So thank you so much. Jean-Pierre, the EBRD works closely with cities and the private sector to finance infrastructure and sustainable urban development. How can we better leverage public funding to accelerate private investment in nature-positive and climate-resilient action at the local and subnational level?

Thank you. A great question. Maybe first consideration, because a lot has been said by my colleagues, which shows that As development agencies, not only we have a similar approach, but we work a lot together, right? So there is also a system level type of approach that we follow that I think helps also creating the momentum and the acceleration. Now, the question you're raising is an important one, but it's also a complex one to address because we all know about the hundreds of billions of finance gaps. that cities require to deal with nature-related opportunities and announcing and building long-term resilience. And clearly, this funding cannot come exclusively from public channels. So the private sector is an important element, a very, very important element. The reality, though, is that at the moment, most of the funding still comes from public channels. So there is a clear kind of issue to address. The way we are trying to do it at DBRD is, I would say, through three key pillars. One, it's about data and information. So when we engage with cities, we increasingly support them in understanding the short, medium, long-term risks. So a risk assessment is a part of the engagement and is very much informing the way projects are prioritized and investments are, decisions are taken. We also try to improve the way cities can acknowledge and understand the economic benefits. So we have a methodology, we call it, you know, quite simplistically, you know, climate resilience outcomes. So basically, we give us a value to the actual outcomes we expect from the investments. And this gives really a sense of the economic returns that investment can generate. But there is also more that we can do, which is Really, and this is where you can build a bridge with the private sector, is how actually these interventions from nature-based solutions, from climate resilience, can ultimately increase the value of assets and improve investors' confidence. That's a critical element. We already some good examples there. So data information is a critical one. Second pillar is about capacity. So giving, you know, often city authorities, they don't have the capacity, sometimes even the knowledge, you know, to really structure interventions to attract private capital. We have a municipal bond initiative starting in 2023. which we use to support basically cities to do three things, you know, is the technical assistance to prepare the potential issuance of a bond, is also, you know, the identification of the portfolio project that can be used as a basis for a bond, but also, you know, sort of offsetting the cost for external reviews, right? Has this been very successful? No, just to be very honest. Because the issue of fragmentation and credit-worthiness remain really a problem. Where we have some good example, one is actually neighboring country, in Georgia, 300 million bond with the local water utility, of which we participated with 40 million, which is focusing on restoration of water infrastructure and development of water infrastructure. So mixed bag, but certainly the capacity the city needs is an important element. And perhaps the final point there is what I would call, you know, the opportunistic element. So trying to build on leverage on opportunities that come to bring elements of biodiversity or indeed in climate resilience. One example is about, you know, the city of Timisoara in Romania. So we financed the district heating interventions, we took advantage of that engagement to build an urban regeneration program. So we have the city identifying the opportunities, determining the cost of the environmental remediation of that particular site, and then involving the private sector in the development of that infrastructure. So again, involving the private sector as an opportunity rather than necessarily in the financing structure per se. Final point, a bit off topic, but very, very relevant because Valery mentioned the power of the networks of the alliances, ICLEI, C40, WRI, GCOM, et cetera. Super important. I think we're seeing really such an uptake of interest, attention, knowledge sharing in the last few years because of, you know, the efforts made to create these networks of municipalities and mayors. The exchange, the peer learning is an incredibly important element. So that's also another area where we are really focused on really establishing this connection with different cities. They face the same challenges, they face the same situations. Super powerful.

Thank you so much. And you really highlighted the important role that public and private finance is making in connecting these, making these connections possible and these partnerships possible, while really keeping that public benefits at the center, because it's our centers, the benefits at the center, because that's what our cities are responsible for delivering, but it certainly isn't without its challenges, clearly. So thank you. Moko, from the perspective of the development finance institutions, what needs to change to make it easier for cities and regions to access and deploy finance for nature positive and climate resilient development? In particular, how can institutions such as DBSA help bridge the gap between local ambitions and the bankable projects, capacity, and financing mechanisms needed to turn these ambitions into implementation?

Cities operate in very dynamic environments. They face a number of challenges that must be addressed all at the same time, especially cities in our region, where you find that sometimes there are financial constraints, there are political changes, there are development challenges that must be addressed all at the same time. So very dynamic with very limited resources, and we have observed that it's very important for us to get involved as early as possible as a DFI. So we don't view ourselves as just a financier. We expect projects to come ready prepared. So we really have to become involved as early as possible. So when it comes to With that mentioned, so we are involved from when cities develop their infrastructure plans, as I highlighted earlier. And this is where we have seen that partnerships with our partners such as Italy Africa, for example, C40s, Valeria has highlighted, they're very, very useful, and UNDP as well. They provide technical support to our clients, which helps in terms of providing that first loss capital and getting projects ready. And we advise our cities to integrate climate and nature elements within their plans, because when you try and get involved at a later stage and when you're looking for projects that are ready and that integrate these elements, very difficult for cities to integrate these things when the plans are already developed and finalized. So it's very important for us to influence the integration of these elements right from the start, and we rope in our partners as we do that, and this has been quite useful. And then when the plans are developed and now we identify investment opportunities and we support them to do feasibility studies, we've also benefited from the partnerships that we have with, for example, For example, Iki, the German Climate Initiative, and for the French Development Agency as well, they provide us with early stage funding that we blend with our own resources in order to provide the financing that our cities require to develop their feasibility studies, to do their technical assessments, and to gather all the information and the data that we need in order to provide mainstream financing. So when it comes to mainstream financing, this is where the magic happens. I always say that the magic is in the deal structuring, how you structure the financing, because good quality financing is very important when it comes to the projects that we deal with when it comes to cities, because they are complex, as highlighted by one of my colleagues. They are complex and they are complicated, right? So traditional financing does not work, simply does not work. Therefore, how the capital staking and the structuring of the financing then becomes very, very crucial, because sometimes a project can be deemed unbankable or financially not viable simply because the financing instrument that we provide is not well aligned. But if we ensure that the financing that we provide is packaged in a way that will help propel the success of the projects, then such projects can become successful. And our aim and our strategy as the Development Bank of Southern Africa is to ensure that we unlock the potential in those underserved markets, in those type of projects that would otherwise be deemed unbankable. These projects, when they go to commercial banks, they are turned away because, you know, they require long And they require patient funding, which commercial banks cannot provide. Therefore, how we structure our facilities is we ensure that we structure them in such a way that attracts and crowds in private capital, because we have learned that our public funds are not sufficient, are simply not sufficient. Therefore, we need to crowd in as much private capital as possible in order for us to achieve scale. And how we do this is in ensuring that we incorporate credit enhancement provisions in our facilities, where instead of providing the normal moratorium of one year or two years, we can go up to four years or five years because our projects need that kind of patience in our funding. And also when it comes to pricing as well, the pricing must be concessional and the instrument must be ideal. So we've also, as highlighted by Aziza earlier, When it comes to innovative financing instruments, we are venturing into new instruments that we don't typically look at, and we are partnering with other financial institutions that we don't typically partner with. If I could give an example, we issued an outcome-based bond earlier this year in March with FirstRand Bank in South Africa, where we provided we provided financing that was looking at removing invasive alien species in our strategic water source areas in the Western Cape province in South Africa. In that project, we partnered with high net worth individuals, we partnered with philanthropic organizations, we partnered with commercial banks. So it was really hands on deck, and that staking of different types of financing made the program successful. And we also partnered with asset managers and asset owners. So it When it comes to nature-based projects, it really takes everyone to come together, to work together in order to deliver impactful projects. Therefore, so yeah, so that's very important to us. And I think Iliaon highlighted that even when it comes to implementation, our cities need support because financing might be there. but they may lack technical expertise to implement projects. In South Africa, as you might know, Kate, there are some cities where even though funds are allocated to them, the funds have to be returned to national tradition because they don't have the technical means to implement. So we have construction lawyers and construction engineers that support them even after funding has been confirmed to ensure that we implement the project. So that capacity building really goes a long way from cradle to grave, and that is the support that strive to provide. And because we know that we can't do it on our own, this is why partnerships with yourselves, Italy-Africa, with C40, with other banks, with UN agencies, it becomes very important to us. And we leverage that as much as possible. And another thing that we aim to, that we strive for, is to ensure that the programs that we implement are integrated. Going to my point that cities face different types of challenges that need to be addressed all at the same time. So when we ensure that these projects are integrated, it helps to ensure that such projects, the overall outcome is bigger than the sum of the parts. We benefit from the integratedness of the components within the program itself. Thanks.

Thank you, Moko. And I think you touched on two important points in that, is that you need to be involved at even the policy development stage, not just the developing the proposal stage, but actually the policy development stage and the structuring of finance as another important point. So I'd like to thank our panelists and for your contributions this afternoon. Thank you so much. I think we've really heard a lot about it means helping cities prepare projects, it means finance that fits their circumstances, it means planning for the care and maintenance of nature long after the initial investment. And as we face the risk of warming beyond 1.5 degrees, even temporarily, we must plan for changing conditions. The nature we protect today can help our communities face those conditions, our investments must also help ecosystems remain healthy as climate changes. So thank you so much, and I think Inel is just going to take one quick photo of the panel, and then you are welcome to take your seats. Thank you, Priscilla. Thank you. I'd like to now welcome our moderator, Wade Corfoot, the Californian Secretary for Natural Resources, California Natural Resources Agency, and he's already been introduced earlier, but he will moderate the next panel, and thank you for guiding the next conversation. We will now move to accelerating implementation on the ground, and we discussed what can enable action, and next we'll hear how governments are putting it into practice. So I'm going to ask the next panelist to please come and join us on stage, and that is Ilza Ustra Camp, State Secretary for Environment and Infrastructure at Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Jordi Sagortol, the Secretary for Ecological Transition, Government of Catalonia; Tim Keller, the Mayor of Elberkirchen, United States, Pang Guqiong, the Vice Mayor of Baicheng, Municipal People's Government, China, and Manuela Alves Resch, Councillor of Matosinhos, Portugal, and Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, Scottish Government. Wade, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much. This has been a really good day, and that finance panel that we just heard from, I think, was really important and some of the clearest discussion that I've heard as somebody coming from government around how finance can play a role in this transition that our governmental leaders lead. One thing is very true, and I think everyone would agree, in year of all this couple of weeks, and that is, we need to speed up implementation. Yes, we need to maintain ambition, but we're not in a crisis of ambition. We're in a crisis of implementation. The world is changing, and climate emergencies are worsening, and we have to accelerate implementation of natural solutions and, of course, protecting and restoring biodiversity. So today's discussion is all about that, with governmental leaders who have distinguished themselves as leading this effort to demonstrate meaningful progress on the ground, demonstrable results towards ambition. So I am really excited to moderate this panel and also to welcome my colleague who leads this work in Scotland, Gillian, to join, to frame up our discussion here today. Gillian serves, Gillian Martin serves as Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs in Scotland. And Gillian, you have been a leader of global networks of our governments on this work. So I invite you to frame up our discussion here today.

Thank you very much, Wade. Thank you very much, Wade. I'm delighted to be in this panel and to set the scene ahead of our discussion, we all agreed in the coming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework that we collectively set out that ambitious vision for nature. But today, the question is no longer whether we can have ambition. We've set that out already. Today, it's whether we can deliver on that ambition. And the challenge, as we know, is extremely urgent. Across the world, biodiversity loss continues to undermine resilience of the communities that we serve and our response to climate change. In Scotland, one in nine species is threatened with extinction, and that's extremely sobering. Our seabird populations, iconic species, have declined massively and significantly in recent decades, and much of our biodiversity remains under extreme pressure. So how do we move from ambition to impact? Let me talk about it from Scotland's perspective first. Delivery starts with embedding nature across government and society as a whole. Our biodiversity strategy, delivery plans and the introduction of the first statutory nature restoration targets in Scotland’s history, we’re moving beyond aspiration to accountability. We have legally binding, ambitious targets which will help ensure successive governments, public bodies and partners remain focused on delivering tangible improvements for nature. and by ensuring that Scotland has the framework that's needed to halt biodiversity loss and support nature recovery. And we know that we need to work together globally to protect and restore precious nature, and governments, state governments, any government cannot do this in isolation. The success of what we do will depend on partnership between national and local government, indigenous peoples, local communities, land managers, businesses, environmental organisations, researchers and our citizens. Nature restoration and recovery is a shared endeavour. And that’s why Scotland has focused not only on setting ambitious goals, but most importantly, backing them with practical action. I’m going to give you a few examples of some of the commitments that we’ve made, but I’m going to start by making a new commitment. I trailed it last night, And now I'm going to announce, for the first time, we are announcing an additional £1 million of new investment into nature restoration and wildfire recovery. This funding will support habitat restoration, invasive species management, species recovery work in areas affected by this summer's devastating wildfires that we had in Cairngorms National Park. And it's in addition to the £91 million that we have committed to nature restoration since 2021. Secondly, Scotland's supporting innovation through a new genetic diversity scorecard developed by scientists from Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden, the University of Edinburgh, and NatureScot. The low-cost tool will help improve monitoring of genetic diversity. including marine species, strengthening the evidence base for conservation action. And we are lucky enough that they're actually present here. They're in the exhibition hall downstairs, and you can go and chat to them about that. Third, Scotland has recently published a new plant biodiversity strategy, placing plant conservation at the heart of our wider efforts. to restore nature, respond to the CBD's new global strategy for plant conservation, given the fundamental role that plants play in healthy ecosystems, climate resilience, and thriving and resilient communities. And together, these initiatives demonstrate an important principle. Ambition only matters if it's matched by investment, science, and action, action on the ground. It also depends on empowering the levels of government closest to people and places, and I think that has been a theme throughout today. Subnational and devolved governments are uniquely placed, as we have heard many times from every speaker, to turn global commitments into local results. Yet too often, the delivery is constrained by fragmented governance arrangements, limited access to finance, limited access to data, and the fact that many don't hold all the powers and levers needed to drive change at the scale required. Heaven knows I know that as a Cabinet Secretary in a devolved government. This makes partnership all across all levels of government essential if we're to meet those shared goals. And if we're serious about implementation, Subnational governments need three things: clear responsibilities, meaningful involvement in decision making, so being actively engaged and not simply informed of a decision, and access to long-term investment and the evidence needed to drive change. As I said, no state government, no single government can deliver the global biodiversity framework alone. Its success will depend on whether devolved national governments like mine regions, states, provinces, cities, local authorities are equipped and empowered to act. We also must be able to demonstrate our progress. Strong monitoring systems help us understand what works, identify where more action is needed, and build confidence that investment in nature is delivering on real outcomes. It also gives that ability to be agile. Some things won't work, and we have to maybe look at how we can pivot to what does work and refocus our efforts. So, if the first half of this decade was about setting out the ambition, the second-half has to be about delivering the results. So here's the question that I'm going to pose for discussion on the panel today. What practical change can each of us make over the next four years, ahead of 2030, that will accelerate delivery for nature? Thank you.

Gillian, thank you. Such an effective way to frame our panel. My key takeaways, the task before us is to move beyond aspiration to accountability, and we do that through investment, science, and action. And I want to acknowledge you coming here, as always, with really specific, tangible progress. And I want to ask everyone here today to join me in recognizing through a round of applause your additional commitment of funding that you announced this week for nature restoration and wildfire recovery. All right, next, we're going to turn it to high-level officials from governments across four continents. And we're gonna have two rounds of questions. The first question is going to be a broad question for everybody, and then I'll have a specific question for each of our leaders. The first question is, how have you successfully bridged the gap between this grand ambition and measurable impact on the ground? And how do we scale these wins to meet our 2030 deadline, as Gillian just noted? I want to turn to my friend and colleague, the Secretary of Rio Grande do Sul, which is an important state in Brazil. For those that don't know, states across Brazil play a critically important role due to their authorities and their resources in both biodiversity and climate change. So over to you, Secretary.

Thank you, Wade. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm representing ABEMA, the Brazilian Association of State Environmental Entities, which brings together 50 member organizations from Brazil's 26 states and the federal district. I also speak as Secretary of Environment and Infrastructure of Rio Grande do Sul, a Brazilian state that is proud to be a member of ICLEI network. Our main lesson is simple: global emissions only become real when they reach our territories. State and local governments are where biodiversity conservation, environmental licensing, ecosystem restoration, protected areas, and sustainable development policies actually happen. And this is exactly why cooperation between different levels of government is so important. In Brazil, we have learned with ABEMA, and we had, sorry, in Brazil, we learned that collective action is one of our strongest tools. Through ABEMA technical chambers and working groups, states share experience, align environmental criteria, and develop solutions together. What works in one state can inspire and accelerate progress in others. A concrete example of this cooperation is the ABEMA Charter for Biodiversity, which we had the honor of presenting to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity here in Armenia yesterday. This Charter was developed collectively by representatives of Brazilian states, which the important contributions of ABEMA's technical chambers on biodiversity. It reaffirms our commitment to biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of nature resource, and the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. But the charter is more than a declaration of our intentions. It's a message that Brazil states are ready to take responsibility for delivering global biodiversity commitments. In Rio Grande do Sul, we also understand that protecting biodiversity must go hand in hand with climate resilience, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable economic development. Our experience with extreme climate events that occurs in 2023 and 2024 has reinforced how essential healthy ecosystem are for the protection people, communities, and our future. And being part of ICLEI strengthens our ability to connect local experience with international cooperation and solution. So how we scale up our achievements by 2030, I believe we need three priorities. First, strong integration between national, state, and local biodiversity strategies. Second, common indicators and measurable targets, so we can demonstrate real progress on the ground. And third, stable and accessible financing that reaches the governments and communities responsible for implementation. We have ambition global targets, but we must also have the tools, research, and partnerships to achieve them. The ABEMA Charter represents this collective commitment from Brazilian states, and networks like ICLEI are essential partners in connection ambition with implementation. I would like to close with one message. Ambition is global, but impact is local, and the path to 2030 depends on our ability to work together, transforming commitments into measurable results. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Secretary, and thank you for emphasizing the importance of states or provinces or regions within countries coming together. I'm so appreciative of all you are doing across the different states of Brazil through your association. And I think we both experience that when we have national leadership that abandons these priorities, it's our states that keep on driving forward. So big thanks for all of your leadership there. I'll next turn to my colleague from Catalonia, who is also a friend and also one of the world's foremost experts on birds, who has written one of the most comprehensive books on bird biodiversity around the world, Secretary Sagatal.

Thank you, Wade. I speak in Spanish. My English is only good ornithological English. The northern English, no. Resumes. tenemos la Estrategia del Patrimonio Natural y la Biodiversidad con horizonte del año 2030. Pero la estrategia no es solo una visión a largo plazo. La desplegamos mediante planes de acción cuatrienales que traducen esta ambición en actuaciones concretas y nos permiten revisar periódicamente las prioridades y avanzar hacia los objetivos que nos hemos fijado. Eso también implica crear las condiciones para que las actuaciones puedan implementarse realmente. Por ejemplo, en los espacios naturales protegidos hemos reforzado la gestión activa mediante programas de financiación y alianzas con más de 30 organizaciones ambientales y también municipios y otros actores del territorio. Así pasamos de tener territorio protegido a generar actuaciones concretas de conservación y restauración sobre el terreno, porque la conservación solo es efectiva cuando se construye con el territorio, incorporando el conocimiento, las capacidades y las necesidades de todos los actores que trabajan y viven en él. Pero para implementar adecuadamente también necesitamos conocimiento y capacidad para tomar decisiones. Por eso estamos desarrollando el SINATCAT, que es un sistema de información de la naturaleza en Cataluña, con el objetivo de conectar toda la información sobre el patrimonio natural con la planificación y la acción de la Administración. No se trata solo de disponer de más datos, sino de poder utilizarlos para planificar, gestionar y hacer seguimiento de las actuaciones de conservación. En este marco, los módulos integrados de biodiversidad integran información sobre especies, hábitats, procesos ecológicos, amenazas y medidas de conservación. Se estructuran en torno a 18 tipos de ecosistemas identificados y nos permiten pasar de un enfoque centrado en elementos individuales de la biodiversidad a una planificación ecosistémica. Esta conexión entre planificación conocimiento y acción es lo que nos permite pasar de la ambición al impacto. Y creo que esta es también la clave para llegar al 2030. No debemos escalar únicamente proyectos individuales, sino los sistemas que hacen posible que estos proyectos funcionen. Financiación, capacidad institucional, conocimiento, alianzas y mecanismos para replicar aquello que funciona. Y aquí, los gobiernos subnacionales Tenemos un papel especialmente importante. Estamos suficientemente cerca del territorio para implementar bien las actuaciones, pero también tenemos la capacidad de conectar esta acción con los compromisos nacionales y globales. Muchas gracias.

Thank you so much, and thank you for Catalonia being such a leader of organizing us around the world and basing our actions on science. The partnerships you have between scientific institutions in Catalonia and governments is a model for all of us moving forward. So thank you. I will next turn to one of America's leading mayors on these issues, Tim Keller, who represents and leads the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. As Mayor Keller explained last night, there are hundreds of American mayors leading this work, and we are honored to have Mayor Keller with us this week in Yerevan. Over to you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. And I also want to just acknowledge the tremendous California delegation that you lead. And so we're very fortunate as Americans to have one of our largest states, California, heavily represented here. I think 70 plus members in your delegation. So thank you for that leadership. And also, as He mentioned being the only mayor here. I do want to emphasize, there are hundreds of mayors all over America that are believers in climate change, that are supporters of biodiversity, and that are working with tremendous partners like ICLEI USA, that works with dozens and dozens of mayors all across the country on these issues, as well as other local governments. And a group called America's All In, because literally we believe that America is all in at the city and at the state level. Even if we're not always there at the federal level, we will continue to be all in at the local level. So some examples of that for us when it comes to this particular question, I think really Ambition is, of course, a starting point. And I think what we understand here and what we all try and do is do as much as we can. But we know this gets very difficult when you actually have to implement. And this is where, in particular, cities, I think, can be very helpful. There's a gap between ambition and impact, and it is cities that can actually deliver on that gap. And I'll give you some examples of some durable partnerships that are really helping biodiversity in the USA high desert. So just briefly, our Rio Grande, there are many Rio Grandes, the Rio Grande I'm referring to is in the southwestern United States. And for us, Albuquerque is really the biggest city on the Rio Grande in the middle of the flow. And so we are responsible for essentially 300 miles of both watershed, but also a linear forest known as the Bosque. And that forest is 300 miles long, and it's only about two miles wide. So it is literally the most important biodiversity corridor in the high desert in the Southwest United States. And so we have to do what we can to help And our river, like many rivers, is drying up due to a number of factors, but especially climate change. What we've been able to do to try and push back on what is happening is some very concrete local efforts. And that includes things like dealing with invasive species. We have something called the Russian olive and the tamarisk that are shrubs, and they essentially get on the side of the river and suck the water out, and they also block out the other native species. So we actually actively work in removing those species. with our local partners. But then we also have to support what's happening in the water. And this is an issue where all of a sudden we saw the minnows the little small fish dying off in the river. This is what's known as the silvery minnow. This is an indicator species. When that dies, then all of a sudden there's too much algae and then nothing else can grow, and then there's more sediment, and then the river fills up anyway. So we're now coordinating across dozens of different agencies to reintroduce the silvery minnow. And we actually breed them in our biopark. We have massive warehouses like the size, about this size, that are breeding about 40,000 silvery minnows that we release each and every year. And so this is a way which we are then helping everyone downstream from us and restoring that natural balance in the water for the rest of that Rio Grande watershed. So I think if you look at some of these examples, we want to scale what works. And we have numerous, numerous challenges, of course, around desertification and around climate change in our community. But in this way, we're actually able to help protect the river and also protect the way it flows and hopefully the way that it naturally floods, another thing that is critical for agriculture up and down the Rio Grande corridor. So it's successful local models that I think should not remain isolated, but that we need to do more to share more of and to help support and sustain and finance more activities that we can learn from all over the world, just as these examples in the Rio Grande. Now, I know that if we want to measure results too by 2030, we've got to invest in that local capacity because we need the frameworks, we need the policies, but at the end of the day, we need the actual work on the ground, and that's where cities hopefully stand ready to deliver. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mayor, and for reminding us and providing such a powerful example of these natural systems that our places depend on, in your case, the Rio Grande River. Water scarcity, a challenge across our part of our country, our own country, but also so many parts of the world. And your action to actually address this through actions that protect water, but also biodiversity, like removal of the invasive species. We're next going to move to a very different part of the world, and we are very excited to have a leader from Chinese municipal government with us here today, Vice Mayor Pan Kuei-kung. Vice Mayor leads Baishan Municipal Government, and I did a little of research on Baishan, and it is a beautiful part of China in the northeast. And it's remarkable, I think 85% of the land covered in forests and nature. So let me turn to you, Vice Mayor, for your thoughts on what's working in Baishan. We have to go to, you have to scroll down to English online.

Thank you to the moderator for the question, and thank you so much for this kind of opportunity. Drawing on the practical experience of Baishan City, I would like to share our experience in three key areas. First, we have maintained a strong focus on strategic planning, translating global targets into local action. And we know that Baishan has integrated biodiversity conservation into urban development and the territorial spatial planning. So, we have strengthened its scientific monitoring to make conservation outcomes measurable and tangible. We have established a biodiversity monitoring network and continue to conduct baseline biodiversity survey, monitor key species, and restore ecosystems. And ecological conservation Red lines cover 58% of the city's total land area, and 27 protected areas have been established. We have coordinated efforts in in-sight conservation, ecological corridor development. And secondly, I want to repeat that the scientific monitoring is a very vital issue to make conservation outcomes measurable and tangible. The population of the scaly-sided Mirgus squamatus increased from fewer than 300 birds in 2018 to more than 600 in 2025. In total, over 1,900 hectares of land have undergone ecological restoration. And in 2025, the proportion of days with good or excellent ambient air quality reached 98%. These concrete figures make our biodiversity conservation achievements more visible and measurable. And the third one is we have promoted multi-stakeholder participation to make successful practices replicable and scalable. We have piloted an integrated model combining ecological policing with community patrols and established joint ecological policing and conservation centers. This approach encourages the government, local communities, and other social stakeholders to work together. At the same time, we are actively developing green industries with distinctive local characteristics, including mineral water ecotourism, and clean energy. And looking ahead to 2030, we hope to further strengthen exchanges of experiences and the technical cooperation among cities around the world, establish mechanisms for sharing local conservation achievements, and promote practical approaches in ecological restoration, community-based co-management, and realizing the economic value of ecological products by enabling more localities to learn from and adapt these practices to their own circumstances? Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I can share that California and Chinese cities and provinces have had a long partnership of sharing information and strategies. And in traveling to China, I have learned just how effective a lot of these interventions have been. And I commend your municipal governments on being so outcomes-focused with very specific measurements. You've held yourselves accountable for remarkable progress. So thank you very much. We're now going to turn, we're going to visit another part of the world, and that is in an important community on the northern coast of Portugal. Also a beautiful part of our world. And we're joined by Councillor of the city of Matosinhos, Manuela Alvarez, councillor interested in what's happening in Matos Santos.

Thank you very much. I believe that one of the ways to bridge the gap between global ambition and local impact is to recognize that change does not always have to start at the large scale. In Matosinhos, a small coastal city in the north of Portugal, we have politics and strategics and plans, but we have learned that the value of working locally, addressing specific needs in different parts of the municipality, rather than relying only one large city-wide initiatives. Our positive neighbors, it's one example. By working directly with communities in social housing neighborhoods, we can address issues such biodiversity in green corridors or heat islands or resilience of the territory in a way that is closer to people's everyday lives. Through local awareness raising activities, including those organized with our parish councils, we help residents understand the problem and identify practical measures they can take. What matters here is that these interventions are not isolated actions. Each one addresses a specific need, reaches a particular community, and creates an opportunity to understand what works and where further action is needed. Working at this scale allow us to see the impact more clearly, adapt our approach to different local realities, and gradually extend successful solutions to other areas. And when we connect these efforts, they can contribute to something much bigger than any individual project, our wider climate and sustainability goals. As we approach 2030, I believe we need both ambition and pragmatism. We need a clear common direction, but also the flexibility to act locally, learn from experience, and build progress step by step, because global change does not happen somewhere else or all at once. It happens where in many different places through different actions. that together move us towards a common goal. Thank you.

Thank you. And you're so right. You know, connecting very specific actions to these broader priorities is so important. And I anticipate that in coming years, coastal cities around the world will have to work more closely together. In California right now, the super El Nino and conditions where the sea is literally destroying our beaches and destroying homes. So I imagine we'll be learning more from each other in coming decades. So for this final round, I have a specific question for each of you based on your your experiences and where you are in the world. Secretary, first to you in Rio Grande do Sul, you have the challenge of biodiversity management across two distinct biomes, the Pampa in the south and the central, and the Atlantic Forest in the north and the east. How do you balance managing two very distinct biological regions and balancing that with intensive agricultural production?

Yes, thank you. Yes, Rio Grande do Sul is a very special state in Brazil because we have two important biomes, the Atlantic Forest and the Pampa. And we are the only Brazilian state with the Pampa biome. Our message is simple. Different ecosystems need different solutions. In the Atlantic Forest, our priority is to protect the remaining forest. restart degraded areas, and connect natural biomes and natural habitats. We also work with local governments, farmers, and communities to protect biodiversity. In the Pampa, the situation is different. The Pampa is mainly formed by natural grasslands with a very rich biodiversity. That grasslands have supported traditional livestock farming for many generations. And this is an important thing, because in the Pampa, sustainable cattle farming can help protect biodiversity. When farmers maintain native grassland and use good land management practices, they help conserve these unique ecosystems. So, farmers and ranchers are not only food producers, they can also be partners in conservation. Of course, Rio Grande do Sul is also one of Brazil's major agricultural states. We produce rice, soybeans, corn, meat, and many other products. Agriculture is very important for our economy, our communities, and food security, but we also know that Agricultural expansion can put pressure on natural ecosystems. This is why we need to find a balance. In our state, we work with environmental rules, land registration, restoration programs, and incentivize sustainable agriculture. We also encourage farmers to adopt better practices to protect soil, water, and biodiversity. One important example is our, with sustainable rice production, encouraging farmers to improve environmental practice while maintaining fruit production. We believe that environmental protection and food production must work together. And after the extreme floods that affected Rio Grande do Sul in 2024, this became even more important. We learned it. that healthy ecosystems are essential not only for biodiversity, but also for climate resilience and the protection for our communities. Forests, wetlands, and native grasslands all have an important role in protecting our environment. Looking ahead to 2030, our challenge is to expand these actions, support farmers, restore ecosystems, and make sustainable production part of our development strategy. I would like to finish again with a message. We do not have to choose between producing food and protecting nature. We need to produce food while protecting the ecosystems that make this production possible. This is the future we are working for Rio Grande do Sul.

Thank you. Thank you. That is such an important message because I know we all share agriculture as an important function, not only to provide food, but to power our economies. And too often in the past, we thought about environment versus agriculture. And our farmers and ranchers are key implementers of the conservation, of biodiversity protection, and in the process, they protect the health of their lands. And so thank you for that important message. Secretary Sagartal, Catalonia is distinguish itself as really almost unique in this integrated framework that you have built that connects biodiversity to climate to land action. How do you measure across these three domains that we're working to integrate? And what model could you provide the rest of the world on this front?

Thank you, O8. En Cataluña, el seguimiento del estado de la naturaleza es una pieza central de nuestra política de conservación. Por eso creamos el Observatorio del Patrimonio Natural. 现在没有办法翻译成英文，因为技术的问题，我们现在没有办法。 la evolución de la biodiversidad.

Thank you. As we know that over this two weeks, negotiators across our countries are having this conversation around the connection between climate change and nature loss and nature impacts, and what synergies can exist between taking action on each and both. And I think our governments around the world, regions, states, cities, need to work together on how we integrate as well, these challenges. And either the indicators that you're working on that bridge what have been specific sectors into one integrated framework is very, very important. Mayor Keller, you're a mayor, and mayors have to address the problems, the priorities of their residents. At the same time, you're here a world away from your city because you're our leader on these broad issues of climate change, biodiversity, land. How do you connect local priorities to these broader goals in Albuquerque?

Well, I think for us, it always helps to have a seminal event or a specific species in many cases that taps into local heritage and local culture. And I'm going to build on a bird example. We are visited each year by the sandhill cranes. They fly from Canada, and they come for the winter in New Mexico. And this migration of these, and they're all birds are wonderful, but these are massive birds that you cannot miss in your town. And so we have thousands of these visitors every year, and they signal winter. They also signal harvest, but they signal a special time in many ways in our community of gathering together with family because the cranes are here. For us, it's almost slang for it's family time. The cranes are here. And so all of a sudden, the cranes didn't come as much. And it's all because of lots to do with climate change, migratory patterns shifting because of average temperatures increasing. And most importantly, what we discovered is that they're not coming because of a lack of farmland next to the Rio Grande. So the Rio Grande floods and it waters farmland, and it's done that for thousands of years. And so all of a sudden, when there's not enough water and it's not flooding, then there's no farmland. And so for us, our farmland is essentially fallow. People don't use it anymore, but that means the birds have nothing to eat when they come. So that's actually the real reason why they're not coming. It is related to a lot of climate change, but specifically, it's actually a lack of food. And so we use this as a way to sort of bring back the cranes. And it has done much more than just that. So we bought, as a city and now as a community, with many partners, over 1,000 acres of farmland next to our bosque in the Rio Grande. But then we have to actually get back to farming. And so now all of a sudden, the cranes have given us a reason to look at local farming and at a circular food economy all over again. And so all of a sudden, now we are doing community farming again. And it was all really because of the power of that crane for our community that has actually, in many ways, retaught us how to grow our own food and how to cultivate crops again. And so we're grateful still to the crane in our community. And I think it's a good example of sometimes what it takes to get collaboration, what it takes to actually get people to work together. Sometimes it takes a powerful symbol or a powerful event, or in this case, a powerful bird.

That is such a beautiful story. And I agree that sandhill crane is an incredible, incredible bird. And your story and your experience demonstrates that nature needs people, and people need nature. And so, you know, and another example of where an important human practice, farming, actually has a symbiotic benefit to these animals and these birds, and you've used it to galvanize your community. It's really remarkable. Vice Mayor, we all balance the need for economic development, housing, physical development with biodiversity conservation. What have you been able to do in Baishan regarding partnerships and practical actions to balance development and biodiversity protection?

Thank you for the question. Located in the heart of China’s Changbaishan Mountain, Baishan is home to more than 1,500 species of wild higher plants and over 400 species of wild vertebrates. This rich biodiversity is one of our most valuable natural assets and a vital foundation for the city's sustainable development. We are advancing our conservation efforts in three key words. Let me answer your question in these three points. First, we put ecology first and explore pathways to green development. We have integrated biodiversity conservation into every stage of urban planning, industrial development, and resource management. We are building a comprehensive system of protection areas, strictly enforcing ecological conservation red lines and strengthening the protection of our sites of the wild plants, wildlife, and their habitats, while enhancing the capacity of ecosystem to provide essential services. Building on the Changbaishan Mountain, distinctive forest, water resource, and biodiversity, we are developing industries such as ginseng cultivation, ecotourism, and mineral water production, and so on. Second, we take a holistic approach to safeguard entire ecosystems. We coordinate the conservation of forests, rivers, wetlands, and other ecosystems. Key initiatives include ecological protection and restoration at the source of the Yalu River, as well as remediation of abandoned mines left over from previous mining activities. We are also developing ecological corridors to maintain the integrity and the connectivity of wildlife habitats. At the same time, we continue to protect rare species, including the Chinese marten and the forest musk deer. Okay, next, the third one. We foster collaboration among multiple stakeholders to strengthen the conservation efforts. At a local level, we promote collaboration between public security authorities, forestry departments, and community residents. We have organized community-based teams to protect the Chinese mergens, carrying out routine patrols, species monitoring, and wildlife. At the international level, Bishan hosted the second international conference on biodiversity in the North East Asia in 2019, actively promoting scientific exchange and international cooperation. Thank you.

Across different Asian agencies and your community members, and they'll note that it's another bird that is inspiring people to come together, the Chinese mercanser. So really, you know, helping people connect to these aspects of their nature as a way to protect, you know, these broader priorities is really important. Counselor, in your community in Portugal, you have connected local actions to these broader priorities, what partnerships and capacity building have enabled you to make this progress?

Thank you. I would say that one of the most important steps has been to understand that climate action is not the responsibility of a single department, but as a shared municipal and community effort. So we needed to break those silos. In Matosinhos, our municipal climate action plan provides a common framework. Through the Local Climate Action Plan Monitoring Council, we create the space to bring different stakeholders together, follow progress, and strengthen cooperation around our climate objectives. Partnerships are essential because municipalities cannot deliver this transition alone. We need to work with companies, associations, academic institutions, energy agencies, other levels of governments, other cities, combining different forms of knowledge and capacity. But above all, and once again, we need to work with our citizens. And our Civic Laboratory for Climate Transition, LABIC, was a good example of this approach. Through workshops and collaborative activities, people were able to identify local challenges and contributed to development of 12 solutions, including practical actions related to biodiversity, food, consumption, energy. So for us, Participation is not simply about informing people after decisions have been made. It's about creating opportunities for citizens to contribute to the process, influence priorities, and help develop solutions that respond to their communities. This also requires internal capacity. Municipal teams need to work across departments, share knowledge, and connect long-term strategic objectives with local implementation. Because ultimately, partnerships give us the capacity to act, and citizen participation helps us ensure that our actions are relevant, inclusive, and grounded in real needs. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and thank you, panelists, again, across four continents and different levels of government. Here are my key takeaways from our session. The ambition is clear, and the progress is here in cities and in regions across the world. Of course, it is not mission accomplished, though. Yes, progress, but we have so much work to do. And you all have shared key points for our continued progress. One, integration of different levels of government, city, region, national government. Critical that these levels of government are working together. Critical that partnerships exist and go beyond government. We have an important role, but we are not going to do it alone. So whether it's farmers and ranchers or members of the public, we need these partnerships. You've all explained that finance on these and durable resources for this work is critically important, and that's a theme that we'll continue to communicate. And then lastly, people need clear reasons to protect and restore nature, whether it's a charismatic bird that defines a way of life in communities in the United States and China, or whether it is to protect ourselves from the emergencies from climate change that are already here. People need these reasons. So I leave this panel with a lot of hope and encouragement, energized by the progress and also by the challenge ahead. Gillian, we look to Scotland for leadership, bringing us together around the world on action across our regions. I'm interested in any key takeaways you have from this discussion.

One of the things that I've been thinking as I've been listening to all the panelists, that's maybe not been directly mentioned, but it's been very apparent to me, is how important the cultural identity of our nature is to all of us. And hearing the stories of particular projects that maybe been influenced by particular species or people, the landscapes that have got something to do with their cultural and national identity. And I think this is actually a tool that we have because there's nothing energizes communities and governments. more than cultural identity to be able to sort of like get people emotionally behind a project and what you're doing. And I think it's been very apparent that how strong a tool that is to get people involved in nature conservation. Of course, I'm speaking as a country whose national animal is a unicorn, so I don't know quite how that fits in with everything, but certainly, you know, where you're able to sort of like connect people's emotions to their landscape and to the flora and fauna of the place that they live, I think that's a very powerful tool, and that's certainly one of my takeaways from what I've heard today.

That is such a powerful final word for this panel. Please join me in thanking our panelists here today. And I'm gonna ask our panelists for a photo all together, so if you can look attentive at the camera in front of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Wade, and thank you to our panelists for sharing your experiences. Our communities experience climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation together, and the examples you've shared here really help us respond in ways that can meet these challenges. We now get to turn to some special announcements. And this is a chance to recognize the progress and welcome new commitments from our cities, regions, and partners. To guide the segment, please welcome Togo Uchida, the Regional Director of ICLEI Japan. And I think, yeah, it just sticks with me now is that progress grows when people share what they are doing, and these moments really help us see where new partnerships and opportunities are opening up. Togo, the floor is all yours.

Thank you, Kate. Good afternoon, distinguished mayors, governors, colleagues, and friends from all around the world. My name is Togo, and I'm the regional director for IPEL Japan office. And it's my honor to serve as a moderator for this session. As it was briefly explained, this summit is usually we come together every COP to reaffirm our commitments as cities and subnational governments to check where we are, and together where we share our experiences, we are encouraged, and that's the main function of this summit. In addition to that, we come and also this summit act as a space where we announce new initiatives to further accelerate our actions as subnational and local governments. So as with the other summits in the past, I'm very happy to say that we have many lists of new announcements that we can make today. Yes, let's begin. So how I will run this session? So there will be a number of initiatives announced by our partners and friends. So I will call those who will be announcing to the stage one by one to give out the wonderful news for all of us to celebrate. So to start with, I would like to invite Natalia Uribe, Secretary General of Regions 4, to the stage. Natalia, please.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Real pleasure to be here. Barikesor, I hope for Armenian friends, I hope that's approximately right. Somewhere, right now, a subnational government has already solved a problem that thousands of fathers are struggling with. The solution works, it's being tested, and it's ready to help our communities move forward on our global environmental goals. Natalia, Secretary General of Regions 4, the global network bringing together some national governments from around the world for climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development. We represent 173 regions, 25 countries, 430 million people. And as you've seen today at this summit, Regions are restoring wetlands, protecting forests, bringing biodiversity and climate action together, putting biodiversity at the heart of economic and development decisions. So since 2015, we've been capturing these stories together with Regions with Nature, and capturing these stories through our case study database. What did regions do? What worked? How did they do it? What results? And what can others learn from them? And almost 50,000 downloads later, we know one thing, and regions are asking this every day. Regions want to learn more from each other. So we want to take that leadership and inspiration to travel further and faster. So that is why today we're really excited and proud to launch the next phase of this initiative, which is our Arboris initiative. Arboris is our new ecosystem for solutions for climate, regional solutions for climate and biodiversity, to help proven approaches take root in new territories. How? We are going to identify and document those proven regional solutions, match regions with shared challenges and learning needs, connect their teams through peer learning, mentoring, and visiting experts program, and help regions adapt those examples to their own specificities, governance, and ecosystems, of course. Our ambition is to multiply. This is really cost effective as well, right? We don't need to begin from scratch, but really build on what has already worked and is already working. But of course, turning knowledge into action also requires resources and investment. We've heard a lot about that in the panel this afternoon, and that's where our Just Resilience Action Platform also comes in. building a pipeline of projects to connect with the financial engineering and the right financial and technical partners. So while Addawadis connects regions to solutions, expertise, and peer learning, the Just Resilience Action Platform helps them develop concrete projects, investment ready, to connect with potential financing partners. So from concrete solutions to peer exchange to stronger regional capacities to a funded project on the ground, that's the pathway, that's the journey we want to offer regions. So, Arbores, will grow with every region that shares its experience. So we invite you today to help us grow it, to share your experiences, because, and also we invite every partner who believes in what regions can achieve. So please join us, help us grow it, and be part of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Natalia. Very exciting to see how that would further extend our collaboration in the regions. Next, I would like to ask Eric Wacher, New York State Senator, to come on stage. Please, Senator.

Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Good afternoon. My name is Eric Boccher. I'm a state senator from New York City, representing the west side of Manhattan. When people think of New York City, you don't normally think of nature. You may think of the Norway rat, but you're not thinking of nature. Cities are often thought of as the enemy of nature, but I'm suggesting to you today that cities are actually nature's greatest allies. One of the greatest threats to biodiversity is habitat loss. The population of Earth is increasing exponentially. As that happens, we are sprawling outwards. Our development patterns consist of low density sprawl, paving over our natural world. The question is, as the population of Earth grows, where will that growth happen? Will it happen with low density sprawl, or will that growth happen where humans already live, in our cities? Transit-oriented development, housing near transit, where people live, isn't just housing policy, it's biodiversity, policy. And in New York City, we are increasing our capacity to build. In my district, we upzoned Midtown Manhattan, allowing for more housing to be built in Midtown Manhattan, 10,000 units in some of the most transit-rich area of the United States. And we passed other reforms in New York City, making it easier to build in New York City. Now, we're taking that statewide. In the next legislative session in Albany, we're going to be pushing to require cities and towns around New York State to contribute to housing growth so we can get away from car-centric, low-density sprawl. There's carrots requiring that they contribute to housing growth, but also sticks, but also carrots. I introduced a bill called Build More, Get More, where the state of New York will pay municipalities $10,000 for every unit of housing they permit. That's money that they can use for their municipality any way that it should fit to incentivize more housing growth, I'll be introducing legislation to eliminate parking minimums. That's when real estate developers are required to build parking garages in their buildings. Even when that apartment building is near transit, they shouldn't be required to include car infrastructure in new housing. Again, these policies will help reduce the car-centric sprawl that is contributing to the biodiversity crisis. But even as we build more housing in our cities, we must make sure that those cities are greener, creating more space for nature to thrive alongside us. And that is what we've been doing in New York City. In my district, we've planted well over a thousand street trees. We passed legislation requiring the traffic medians to have permeable green infrastructure. We're transforming 21 blocks of Broadway into a ribbon of green down the middle of Manhattan. And I passed legislation that we call the Urban Forest Master Plan that will require the city to put forward a plan to achieve 30% street tree coverage over New York City by 2035. And today, I'm excited to announce a new chapter in that work. I'll be working with Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Siegel to develop Manhattan's first local biodiversity strategy and action plan. And our goal in Manhattan, one of the densest places anywhere on Earth, our goal is to expand green space, restore natural habitats, support native species and wildlife, and make one of the most densely populated places on Earth a modern global model for urban biodiversity. So here at this conference, we're connecting with experts and potential partners who can help us develop this plan in Manhattan so we can bring the best ideas back to New York. There's exciting things happening in New York City. In New York Harbor, we have humpback whales for the first time in 100 years in New York City. We have red-tailed hawks circling our skyscrapers. We have dolphins in the East River and the Hudson River once again. I believe that we can make the next century the first century where humans can grow and prosper, not at the expense of nature, but alongside it. And New York City is going to be a partner in that. Our president is not here at this conference. New York City is here, and in two years, we'll be back in much greater numbers. Let's go out and let's make this happen. Let's save the planet. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Senator Boucher. I would like to remind everyone that New York City was number 200 in signing the city with nature. So thank you very much for that, announcing the new symbolic action in Manhattan. Thank you so much. Now I would like to move and ask Rebecca Johnson, Director, Center for Biodiversity and Community Science, City Nature Challenge, to come on the podium.

Hello, everyone. My name is Rebecca Johnson, and I direct the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California. Thanks to ICLEI, our wonderful Armenian hosts, for the opportunity to speak. And thanks to the state of California and the California Natural Resources Agency for their strong subnational leadership here and at home. And also thanks to the California Global Biodiversity Alliance for organizing such a strong and diverse California delegation. My team at the Academy designs and implements community science campaigns with partners in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and all over the world. These campaigns connect people to nature and each other, and collect critical biodiversity data. We use the data we collect to fuel our science and build tools to inform decision making around biodiversity conservation and access to nature. We have a strong partnership with the state of California's Natural Resources Agency and Department of Fish and Wildlife to share community collected data for use in decision making and through the co-development of community campaigns and tools for data interpretation. We also work closely with the city of San Francisco through a citywide alliance we lead called Reimagining San Francisco. We're really fortunate to have strong subnational leaders in our city and our state who are leaders in 30 by 30 and investment in biodiversity conservation, access, and climate action. I also co-founded and co-direct the City Nature Challenge with the community science team at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. Some of you remember two years ago, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the City Nature Challenge in Cali. Since then, the City Nature Challenge has become the largest annual global biodiversity census. In April 2026, over 106,000 people from 754 cities in 62 countries made over 3 million nature observations in just four days. Together, we made observations of 20% of all of the species ever recorded on iNaturalist and observed over 5,000 threatened and endangered species. We also documented over 80 species that had never been recorded on iNaturalist before. Our museums work with over a thousand local and regional organizers all over the world to do this work, who in turn organize and mobilize their communities to get out and observe their local nature at the end of April, beginning of May every year. In 2027, the City Nature Challenge will be April 30th through May 3rd. I'm really thrilled to be bringing this work to COP17 and partnering with local experts in Armenia. We're leading the Yerevan Biodiversity Challenge here in Yerevan during COP17. This is a first ever opportunity for delegates and attendees from all over the world, together with residents and visitors to Yerevan, to work together to document nature in and around the city. Together, we'll make iNaturalist observations over the duration of the COP. Those observations will be aggregated in an iNaturalist project. We invite you to take part by making some iNaturalist observations while you're out and about in Yerevan. The challenge will help us all slow down and notice nature and help remind us why we're all here fighting for biodiversity. It will also help us become more connected to nature and learn more about the incredible biodiversity of Yerevan, Armenia, and the South Caucasus, and develop a sense of place and connect to each other. At the same time, once identified and confirmed, each observation we make will become a species occurrence record, letting us know this species occurs here now. The nature observations we will make are critical to understanding where species occur and how that is changing. And the data overall, because they'll be shared with global databases, including GBIF, can be used to help countries and subnational governments to help them measure their progress toward the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework targets. We're partnering with Yerevan State University, the American University in Armenia, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Framework, the Global Citizen Science Partnership, the Naturalist School, iNaturalist, the California Global Biodiversity Alliance, the Urban Biodiversity Hub, ICLEI Cities with Nature, and the IUCN Convention on Education and Communication. Please download iNaturalist while you're outside and make and share those nature observations. Any observations made in Yerevan during the cop will count. We're also running a BioBlitz nature exploration workshop in the green zone on the 26th at 5:30, so please join us there. Thanks so much.

Thank you very much, Rebecca. City Nature Challenge has been a good partner for City with Nature, and it's been really nice to see your initiative being much more stronger and firm so that we could endeavor this journey together. Thank you so much for that. Now I'd like to invite Moko Matlaba, excuse me, Principal and Climate and Nature Finance Specialist, Development Bank of Southern Africa, to come on podium, please.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon to our mayors, to our governors, our colleagues and friends. It is my absolute pleasure to announce the launch of the GEF Aid Sustainable Cities Integrated Program implemented by ourselves, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, in collaboration with Italy Africa. This project is funded by the Global Environment Facility and forms part of a larger global program led by the World Bank. The global program led by the World Bank supports over 40 cities across 20 countries with a total amount of over a billion dollars. So the GEF has provided us with about $170 million. as grant funding, and this is complemented by co-financing of $936 million from the different partners. So in South Africa, the DBSA is implementing a project funded at around $132 million. So GEF has provided us $8 million in the form of a grant. which is complemented by co-financing of $125 million from ourselves and partners. So the project supports the city of Johannesburg, but we're also supporting selected secondary municipalities, which are Vembe, Jo'burg, and Khelsipande districts municipalities. What I particularly like about this project is that it brings together municipalities that come from different tiers. We're working with secondary municipalities, collaborating with a big city, the city of Johannesburg, but over and above that, we are also collaborating with other cities across the world. Late last year, there was a conference that we attended in Brazil alongside COP26. Cities Corp proceedings, where our municipalities that often don't interact with big cities, they were there, they were represented alongside all the big cities that you know of, city of New York, city of Sydney, and others. And alongside that, we had our municipalities, Jo'burg, Khayelitsha, and Vembe, which was great to see that collaboration and interaction happening at a global stage. So the objective of our project is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also increase the integration of biodiversity into our infrastructure development in South Africa, and also just building capacity within our municipalities on matters relating to policy, investments, and implementation. The project focuses on three key priorities: Firstly, integrated urban planning, strengthening municipal capacity to mainstream biodiversity, climate resilience, and sustainability into urban planning and decision making. And secondly, supporting the development of bankable projects in nature-positive, low-carbon, and climate-resilient urban infrastructure, and lastly, capacity building and knowledge sharing, which this global program is very good at. We are supporting the cross-pollination across different cities participating in the world within the global program. So DBSA as a development finance institution and a GEF accredited agency, we really see our role as bridging the gap between the municipal sustainability ambitions and creating investment-ready projects. And our partner, the Global Environment Facility, supports us through providing that catalytic funding that enables us to crowd in private sector investment and also to put in our own money in scaling this development. And our collaboration with IDLE Africa combines our development finance expertise with at least extensive experience in supporting African cities and local governments. We benefit from their technical expertise in this area, and this really provides a conducive environment to ensure that this program becomes successful. And we're also partnering with other stakeholders as well. And ultimately, our objective is to move cities from planning to implementation, from individual projects to scalable investment programs, and from dependence on grant funding towards sustainable financing solution. We thank the GEF, the Global Environment Facility. We thank the World Bank by taking the lead of this program. We thank ICLEI Africa by being our technical partner and our municipalities that are partnering with us on this program. We look forward to delivering a meaningful environmental, economic, and social benefits through this important initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Morkom as well. The project that she explained, yes, indeed, we partner with this Development Bank of Southern Africa, and I would like to note that it was the first case for ICLEI to become an executive agency as part of this whole big GEF program. So we are very happy to be partnering with DBSA. Thank you very much for that announcement. So we have heard many new announcements, but this is not the end. So I would like to hand back to Kate again for announcement for additional exciting announcement. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Togo, and thank you to everyone who really shared these really exciting announcements. We now have the pleasure to recognize Chinese cities receiving Biodiversity Charming Cities Awards. And the Biodiversity Charming Cities Awards celebrate cities taking concrete actions towards sustainable development, achieving harmonious coexistence between people and nature. Now, ask Qibin and Ingrid, please join me on the stage. And I think it'll be best if you stand in the middle so that everyone can see you. Yeah, I think in the front will be better. All the cables. So congratulations to all these cities being recognized. And I'm going to ask them to please come forward one at a time as your city is called and appears on the screen. Please welcome the representative of Baishan. Please welcome the representative of Huhu Heart. Please welcome the representative of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Please welcome the representative of Myanmar. Please welcome the representative of Shungzhou. Please welcome the representative of Chuji Zhong. Please welcome the representative of Wuhan. We also recognize Guangzhou Nanchang for Urban Biodiversity Demonstration. Please welcome its representative. I'm now going to ask the representatives to please join for a group photograph quickly. Thank you. Thank you so much. We now turn to Cities with Nature. A platform through which cities can share their commitments and actions for nature, learn from one another, and make their contribution more visible. COP15 Decision 5/12 encourages cities and regions to use the platforms such as Cities with Nature and Regions with Nature to report commitments and track progress. Sharing our work helps others learn and helps local contributions become more visible. Please come forward one at a time as your city or district is called to receive your certificate. Kawasaki. Baicheng. No, no, they. So thanks. Gongyong Baiyun. Huhuhot, Yangman, Leishan, Zhongyao. If you don't mind just starting a line to come up as. Shenzhen, Guangming, Wuhan, albuquerque, More than 50 cities have joined Cities with Nature since we last met, and we have reached a very special milestone. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Chungcheong-do shared the honor of being our 400th city committed to Cities with Nature. Please, can you come up? These are very different cities with different opportunities and challenges. Both have vital contributions to make, and every city can find its own way to bring nature into everyday decisions. Please join me in congratulating. Huh? Albuquerque. Oh, I did say Albuquerque. I did say Albuquerque. So, Albuquerque, and then And I'm very pleased to announce that we will hand out a certificate just now, and that is that our 401 member as a city, we have all been had the pleasure of getting to know this week, and that is Yerevan. So, if your city has not joined Cities of Nature yet, or your region has not joined Regions of Nature yet, I encourage you to join and get committed, and you can speak to any of the ICLEI staff or Regions4 staff to join. While I have the mic, I'm going to take a little bit of liberty, and I'm going to ask that all the ICLEI staff please take a little jog

to the stage and join me up here. So, ICLE staff, if you don't mind just coming up on stage. There's a lot of ICLE staff not listening also behind me, so I'm going to ask them if they don't mind joining.

ICLE staff, please join. ICLE staff, to the front.

Thank you, Kate, for giving me this opportunity and for the audience to allow us this opportunity. We are delighted to be here with you, but we're very delighted to also share with you that we're celebrating 10 years of Ingrid Coetzee. There in the middle, I think they're round about the middle. 10 years of dedicated torch bearing perseverance that saw so many milestones throughout this decade where she brought her expertise, her knowledge, her passion, and her leadership to this team. I would dare to say that this team of IGLI champions here would not be here without Ingrid. And she has many friends in this room, and I'm looking at so many of you. We know what Ingrid has done for local and subnational governments today here, but also in the last decade. What a wonderful journey. I've had the privilege of working with Ingrid for over three decades. It was a wonderful moment when I told her, please come join ICLEI, and she said yes, 10 years ago. And I'm looking forward to continue this relationship with Ingrid, even if it's in a new capacity, where she's going to spend a little bit more time with family. Ingrid, thank you. Thank you for what you've done. Thank you for what you'll continue to do in our new capacity as our advisor for biodiversity. I'm looking at my fellow South Africans, who also know that she has a wonderful career before she joined ICLEI in all spheres of government in South Africa, where Ingrid was part and instrumental of writing not only the national policy in South Africa, which we are very proud about for environment, but also the Environmental Management Act. Ingrid is not only a formidable governance official, but she's been serving our global community of cities and regions for the last 10 years with a passion and commitment that we can only strive towards. Thank you, Ingrid. What a moment. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, Kate.

I have to bring a whole row of colleagues to tears. So before we turn to our closing remarks, I would like to look ahead to COP31. And the message we should carry from this room, here at COP17, the first global review brings us back to delivery. What has changed on the ground and where we are falling behind, and what support will help us move faster? We already have important foundations. COP15 adopted a plan of action for local and subnational governments. COP16 strengthened the call to connect biodiversity and climate action. It resumed It resumed the session in Rome, also advanced agreements on finance, monitoring, and review. We now need those decisions to shape how we work. For our constituency, the link between the Rio Conventions is very practical. The city does not experience climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation in separate departments. They meet in its water supply, food systems, neighborhoods, and public budgets. UNEP's report on the overshoot adds urgency. We must cut emissions rapidly and limit how far and for how long warming exceeds 1.5 degrees. Meanwhile, we need to prepare for greater risks. Nature is essential to that response, but it is also under pressure from changing climate. So let us take a clear message to COP31: support local and subnational governments to act across these connected challenges, involve them in national plans, help them access finance, invest in the people and systems that turn a commitment into lasting delivery. And let us measure the results together. We need to understand where the nature is recovering, where the risks are falling, and where the benefits reach the people who need them most. The work we carry from this summit can help make the next climate conversation more practical. We have four years to 2030. Let us use them well. We have reached the closing part of our summit, and thank you for staying with us and for the energy and the experience you have brought today. To help us reflect what comes next, please welcome Natalia back to the stage, Mayor of Yirrobin, Tegan Avian, Alfredo Corra, Mayor of Dacama, Philippines, Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, Scottish Government, and Kirby Brand, our Deputy Secretary of ACOE. We will soon leave this room, but the work continues in the places we govern and the communities we serve. I hope for each of us, we take home a useful idea, a new connection, and the confidence to really move forward faster. I invite our host, the Mayor of Yarraville, to the podium, or maybe if you'd like to, I don't know if you'd like to sit or come to the podium, up to you. Mayor, thank you for welcoming us to your city. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Kate. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the ideas, experience, and openness you have brought to Yerevan. Hosting this summit has given our city an opportunity to learn from people working through many of the same challenges in very different places. I would like to thank the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, ICLEI Region 4, Armenia's Ministry of Environment, and all those whose work made this gathering possible. We meet at a significant moment. COP17 is undertaking the first global review of progress, and as 2030 approaches, the question is how we use that knowledge to make the next years more effective. For local leaders, the answer begins with decisions close to home. How we use land, what we invest in, and how we care for the natural places entrusted to us. These decisions shape the neighborhoods people live in and the environment they will pass on to their children. The discussions at this summit connect those responsibilities with the means to fulfill them. Ambition needs capable institutions, reliable funding, and cooperation between levels of government. A city may have a strong proposal to restore a river or protect a habitat. Bringing it to life often depends on partners beyond its boundaries. And that is where gatherings like this can make a difference. A useful exchange can improve a project, and a new partnership can help it move forward. Shared experience can prevent mistakes and give us the confidence to pursue a better approach. For Yerevan, the value of this summit will extend into the work that follows, and we are pleased also to join the Cities with Nature, connecting with cities around the world to share experience and make nature an integral part of urban development. As the wider COP negotiations continue, I hope the practical experience of cities and regions will help shape decisions that support action where it is needed. Our responsibility is to carry this work beyond the meeting room with the resources, attention, and persistence it deserves. That is how care for people and nature becomes a lasting part of the way we govern. Thank you all. for being here and for contributing to this shared effort, and I look forward to continuing our cooperation, and of course, i look forward to our evening reception. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your words. I think you really highlighted the fact that local government and sub-national government belong. I'm now going to call on the mayor of Dilcoma to share his reflections on behalf of Iki. Thank you, Mayor.

Excellencies, Honorable Mayor Avinyan, Governors, Mayors, Distinguished Partners, Friends, as we bring this summit to a close, I would like to thank the government of Armenia, the COP17 Presidency, The city of Yerevan, of course, Mayor Ravinyan for their warm hospitality. Let's give them a round of applause, please. The CBD Secretariat, ICLAE, Regions 4, and all partners for bringing us together and making the 9th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities a success. This morning, I shared our experience about the mangroves of Del Carmen. and how our community and our heritage depends on nature every day. Today, I heard the same story in different languages, from regions restoring rivers to city greening efforts, to communities protecting their coasts and forests. Different places, but one truth: when we protect nature, we protect our people. That is why the work we do in our cities and regions matters so much. It is also why gatherings like this are very important. They give us the opportunity to share our experiences, learn from one another, and bring new ideas back to our communities, and get financing organizations to participate in this process. We came to Yerevan to show what local and subnational governments are doing, how we are innovating to provide public services equitably, and how our aspirations our investable nature-based solutions. I hope we leave here, Ivan, with fresh inspiration, meaningful connections, and renewed commitment to the communities, to the people, and to the nature we represent. This morning, I ask each and everyone to take one idea home from this summit and share one. Now, let's be bold. act on those ideas and report them to Cities with Nature and Regions with Nature, so we can come back to the next summit with evidence that we keep proving that biodiversity actions starts locally and delivers globally. Thank you once again for being part of this summit, and I look forward to continuing our conversations. starting collaborations and show that local governments are always taking action for nature. Safe travels, everyone. And of course, salamat in our dialect. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor. I now welcome Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs for the Scottish Government, to offer her closing reflections. Thank you.

Thank you very much, colleagues, distinguished guests, partners and friends. As we bring this ninth Summit of Subnational Governments and Cities to a close, I’d like to thank everyone who’s contributed over the past few days and for their continued contributions into next week’s programme. On behalf of Regions 4, I extend our sincere appreciation to the Government of Armenia, the city of Yerevan, the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat, ICLEI, and all those whose efforts have made this gathering possible. It has been truly inspirational. Today has reminded us of the journey we have all taken together. Five years ago, the Edinburgh Declaration set out a powerful vision for recognising the essential role of subnational governments in tackling the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. And the call for stronger multilevel governance helped to shape and implement the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, and its message remains as relevant today as it was then. And throughout our discussions, one message has come through very clearly: achieving the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework will depend on sustained leadership, collaboration, and delivery at every level of government. Regions, states, devolved governments, provinces and cities are where ambition turns into action. We're restoring ecosystems, supporting nature positive economies, engaging local communities, and delivering real benefits for both people and nature. Personally, I'll be going home with stories of how apparently we can now swim in the Seine. There are fish coming back to rivers that haven't seen them in generations. We have got Yes, cetaceans circling Manhattan. We have got species been rediscovered or discovered for the first time in our rainforests in Central and South America. It just goes to show you that although it can be very overwhelming and sometimes very traumatic hearing about biodiversity loss, when we hear of recovery, it's what fuels us to do more. Looking beyond Yerevan, I hope all of us, when we return home, can build on the partnerships that we've developed here and turn our discussions into even more action. So the next time when we meet again, there are more stories of recovery and things coming back to where they're supposed to be in their natural habitats. Working together, sharing experiences, learning from each other, we can accelerate that progress towards a nature positive future, and we can deliver healthier ecosystems, stronger communities, greater resilience for future generations. Regions 4 stands ready to continue supporting this work, fostering that collaboration, shaping experience, and amplifying the voices of sub-national governments and cities within the Convention processes. So as President of Regions 4, Scotland remains committed to championing the role of sub-national governments within the Convention process. and to advancing the spirit of the Edinburgh Declaration, that biodiversity action is strongest when it is delivered collaboratively across all levels of government. Thank you to all, and I wish you all the best in delivering for nature.

Thank you, Secretary Martin. We are now going to hand over to Natalia to share a few key messages from the summit. Thanks, Natalia.

Thank you. Some key messages. Good afternoon again, everyone. And thank you so much, distinguished leaders, colleagues, partners, friends, cousins from Italy. It has been really motivating and inspiring to listen to all the wealth of experiences and solutions happening in your territories. It's really fantastic to be part of this coalition of the willing and coalition of the acting. And what has been very clear today is that some national governments bring their unique level of government with a very precious contribution. They are close enough to understand the needs, the challenges, the opportunities of the unique specificities, cultural, social, ecological. but also strategic enough to shape the policies, yes, shape the policies, not only implement them, shape the policies, the investments, and the partnerships needed to deliver concretely and at scale. So several messages from today. One, biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development must be addressed together at the scale at which they interact. Protecting forests also means securing water supplies, strengthening climate resilience. Restoring wetlands can reduce flood risks, protect ecosystems, and support local livelihoods. They are not separate agendas, and some national governments understand that very well. They require coherent policies and coordinated action. And subnational governments are particularly well placed to do this, connecting urban and rural, coordinating land use across municipal boundaries, and bringing local initiatives into a coherent territorial approach. This is how we bring the Rio Conventions together in practice. Second, scaling action requires investing in the capacity to deliver, including access to finance. We need to better integrate financial viability and investment potential into project preparation from the very beginning, alongside the technical expertise and capacity needed. We also need specific instruments, mechanisms, that respond to the realities and needs of local and subnational governments, and more access to direct finance. Regional governments can aggregate smaller projects across municipalities into larger, more coherent programs, which can give smaller municipalities access to opportunities otherwise beyond their reach, but also helping financial partners support action at a greater scale. Third, Many solutions exist. They need to be shared, adapted, and scaled, and we need mechanisms for that. This means understanding not only what works, but equally useful, what doesn't. and how to adapt it elsewhere. We've also heard about the importance of communicating to the people we serve, communicating the reasons, but also the progress in a way that people understand, and connecting emotionally with the natural and cultural values that are connected. Some national governments can extend successful approaches and cooperation between them and with the national governments and also their capacity to influence and set example at the global stage. Colleagues, cities and regions are on the front lines of biodiversity action. We have distinct, unique and complementary roles, and working together with national governments, partners, and bringing our respective strengths is essential to delivering on the Global Biodiversity Framework. For COP17, for COP31, we must ensure that the contributions of our cities, of our regions, are not only visible, counted, and fully recognized, but also supported with the resources and the investment, the enabling conditions needed to deliver at the pace and scale required. Because global ambition only becomes global impact when it delivers results on the ground, from our largest cities to our smallest and most remote communities, leaving no one and no place behind. Thank you.

Thank you, Natalia, and thank you to Regions 4 for your partnership and leadership. Before our final remarks, I'd just like to thank our interpreters, the technical teams, and the organizing teams, and everyone who's really helped today to make today possible. Thank you for your time. It's my pleasure now to invite Kirby to give the closing remarks for the 9th Global Biodiversity Summit for sub-national governments and cities. Thank you, Kirby.

Thank you so much, Kate. Thank you, everybody, for spending your Saturday with us. I'm looking so forward to the celebrations we will have tonight at the reception. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you there and all our ECW colleagues and all our friends from around the world. Let me start by summarizing what I want to say with a handover. We have officially heard from the mayor of Yerevan. that they will be number 401 joining Cities with Nature. And Mayor, I'd like to hand over this certificate to you, but with this, I'd like to also say to you that let's now jointly take up the challenge to not go to 500, but to 10x it. 4,000 before we get to the next COP. You are our custodian, our ambassador between now and COP18. We're looking forward to the next two years with you under your amazing leadership. Thank you, mayor. Please come and receive this certificate. Thank you. And that summarizes really what I want to say. Action, acceleration, let's do more. I'd like to just offer three calls of action to our community of local and subnational governments. First, let us accelerate implementation. Every city and region should consider how it can strengthen its contribution to the 2030 targets, integrate biodiversity across its areas of responsibility, and ensure that commitments are translated into concrete action. Secondly, let us strengthen accountability and visibility. The work taking place in our cities and regions must be documented, measured, and communicated. We need credible evidence of progress, stronger alignment with national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and meaningful recognition of local and subnational contributions in global progress assessments. And lastly, thirdly, let us build the partnerships and enabling conditions that make action possible. We must work across all levels of government, mobilize public and private resources, share solutions, and ensure that local and subnational governments have the mandate, capacity, and support to deliver. These are not tasks for the future, they are priorities for the work that begins as soon as we leave this room. Let us therefore use the momentum of COP17 to move from commitments to implementation, from individual initiatives to coordinated action, and from recognizing the role of local and subnational governments to fully enabling their contribution. My call to every city and regional leader here today is identify the action you can advance, the partnerships you can strengthen, and the contributions you can make more visible before 2030. Then take that commitment home with you and turn it into measurable progress. Until we meet again in two years from now, thank you.

Thank you so much, Kirby. Before you all rush off, there's just two announcements, logistical announcements to make. The first one is that if you have not received a reception ticket for this evening, please grab one on your way out. You can either grab, I think there's some in the front with Jade. Please make sure you grab one. If you're unsure where it is, I'm gonna try and explain this, is if you get on the bus and you're going out the gate at the booms where the security guards are that you exit in the buses, If you get off the bus at those boom gates, you then go down the stairs to your left and you'll see a beautiful lawn with trees overlooking the red bridge. That is where the reception is going to be. If you are going to be getting a taxi to the reception at 6 PM, you can also get a taxi to the Red Bridge Hotel, and that is where the reception will be on the lawn there. So, and you're welcome to come ask me those details afterwards, but yeah, we look forward to seeing you all there at 6. And I know we've had a lot of people come and go during today's events, and I think there's been numerous other events happening today, so people have been been called to those events and come back, but for those of you that are here, can I ask you all to join us for a photograph in the front of the stage down at the bottom? If you don't mind joining us in the front for one final group photograph. Thank you so much. We are.

We still lost it.

Thank you, Maya. Congratulations to you.

You have to come here. There's so many people making it.

I am going to need everyone to squash in and huddle closely so that we can get everyone into the picture. So if you don't mind just huddling near the center, that would be fantastic. Thank you so much. We can squash up more and move a little bit forward. That'll be fantastic. Okay, I'm going to ask for thumbs up from our photographers if they are happy, if they can see everyone, or whether I need to get everyone even closer. Great. Eleanor, can I get a thumbs up that you can see everyone? Thank you.

Yes.