«We, the undersigned representatives of the public and business sectors of Armenia, note that the goals and provisions of three global intergovernmental multilateral environmental treaties - the three Rio Conventions (the UN Convention on Climate Change, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification) are being implemented ineffectively. Despite more than three decades of intergovernmental negotiations, global warming and, as a consequence, climate change, are intensifying, biodiversity loss continues, and desertification is expanding.
One of the many reasons for this ineffectiveness is that problems and their solutions in the three Conventions are considered in isolation, even though they are interrelated. In addition to the negative impact of global warming on biodiversity and desertification processes, biodiversity loss and expanding desertification in turn negatively impact the rate of global warming by reducing the capacity of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the Earth to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Although Article 8 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification requires “to encourage the coordination of activities carried out under this Convention and, if they are Parties to them, under other relevant international agreements, particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity,” the processes under the three Rio Conventions remain fragmented. An innovative approach is needed to bring these processes together and develop synergies between them. A separate doctrine is needed to create a unified platform. It is necessary to return to the axiomatic principle of “ecosystem integrity” and adopt it as a key, universally valid approach to achieving the goals of all three conventions, with all its accompanying consequences.
Procedures for promoting synergies will of course include the development and transfer of technologies envisaged by the conventions, capacity development, research and systematic observation, loss and damage insurance as envisaged by the Paris Agreement, and other areas.
Financing synergies will require special consideration. Since the beneficiaries of the three conventions are citizens who are also taxpayers and, directly or indirectly, bear the entire financial burden of achieving the goals of the three conventions, the new doctrine must include a mechanism for universal financing and co-financing.
Since the three global environmental problems should be addressed through the ecosystem approach adopted by the Convention on Biodiversity, with payments for ecosystem services as the financing instrument, a mechanism for universal synergistic financing becomes logical and inevitable. Inevitable because it is unequivocally based on the axiomatic truth of “ecological integrity.”
As a payment for ecosystem services, a fee for environmental management should be established based on the “user (polluter) pays” principle (for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, excessive use of bioresources, and unsustainable land use) and directed to a global investment fund established specifically to finance activities to achieve the goals of the three Rio Conventions. Further, the financial resources of this fund should be allocated to all countries that are Parties to the three conventions, distributed in equal amounts per capita according to population size as environmental civil revolving investment capital, owned in the form of individual inalienable vouchers, to all residents of the country for the implementation of investment projects for a) low-carbon development and adaptation to climate change; b) land conservation; and c) biodiversity, primarily in the non-governmental sector – cities, rural communities, and indigenous communities.
Investment turnover and permanent payments for environmental management will ensure the fund's sustainable capitalization and will stimulate a reduction in the burden on nature (in order to pay less for environmental management and receive more from the fund).
Considering that the 17th Conferences of the Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 31st Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change will be held in 2026, we appeal to the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification to support the creation of synergies between the three Rio Conventions as a public demand from non-state actors- the business community and public organizations, and to facilitate the promotion of our initiative to the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will be held in Armenia in October 2026, and to the 31st Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Turkey in November 2026».
August 17, 2026 at 12:09