I’m calling on the state of California, counties and cities to sign on as Observers to the globe’s only treaty for all of nature: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). This is a must do step to show we’re serious about tackling the three-fold crisis of: poverty, biodiversity loss, and climate change.
At the beginning of the 90s, the US championed the CBD. But despite the support of 196 nations, the US itself never ratified it because it feared impacts on big corporate agriculture. Now the US federal government tries to influence other governments’ biodiversity decisions from the sidelines. This is a problem because the US is driving both national and global destruction of nature through our extraction and consumption systems. It’s also a problem because we can’t beat climate change without making healthy ecosystems and people our top priority.
But subnational governments can choose to participate in the treaty — both as “Observers” who attend the treaty meetings and contribute to the outcomes, and as members of the CBD’s Advisory Committee on Subnational Governments (AC SNG). The state of California, as a global environmental leader and the 5th largest economy on the planet would send an especially powerful message to the United States and the world by becoming the FIRST U.S. subnational government to become an Observer.
That message is: We are in this together.
We need to rally support for CA to become a CBD Observer. The help of community groups, nonprofits, local leaders — the help of others who believe that collaboration at all levels is necessary to solve our problems — we need everyone on board. If you’re interested in getting involved, let me know!
Learn more about the CBD and subnational governments here!