Resources and Platforms for Capacity Building and Development for Synergistic Climate and Biodiversity Actions
Capacity building is a key enabler for countries to translate global climate and biodiversity commitments into action. This paper reviews the current state and landscape of capacity building and development for climate and biodiversity actions and curates a selection of existing resources supporting synergies that are available to climate change and biodiversity policy-makers and practitioners.
Key Messages
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Accessible, targeted, country-driven capacity building and development enable countries to turn their commitments into action, from the planning to the implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of their national climate and biodiversity policy instruments.
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Strengthening the right capacities at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels is a prerequisite for achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement and Global Biodiversity Framework, and for ensuring that climate and biodiversity actions reinforce rather than undermine one another.
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Addressing capacity gaps for advancing synergistic climate and biodiversity actions requires sustained, targeted investment across all three interconnected levels of capacity building and development, which are the individual, institutional, and systemic levels.
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A growing ecosystem of resources and platforms exists to support policy-makers and practitioners, but most remain fragmented and are oriented toward either climate or biodiversity audiences rather than those working across both.
This thematic paper identifies capacity building as a key enabler of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, supporting countries in translating commitments into action. Achieving climate–biodiversity synergies requires sustained investment in individual, institutional, and systemic capacities, yet current efforts remain fragmented. Five key capacity gaps persist: governance and coordination, technical expertise for nature-based solutions/ecosystem-based adaptation, aligned monitoring and reporting, finance mobilization, and whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, including gender-responsive implementation. To address these gaps, the paper provides a curated compendium of practical resources to help practitioners identify relevant tools for advancing climate–biodiversity synergies.
The thematic paper is part of a series aimed at enhancing the understanding and policy uptake of integrated solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises:
- Summary paper: Synergies Between Biodiversity- and Climate-Relevant Policy Frameworks and Their Implementation
- Thematic paper 1: Linkages and Synergies Between International Instruments on Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Thematic paper 2: Linkages Between Biodiversity and Climate Change and the Role of Science–Policy–Practice Interfaces for Ensuring Coherent Policies and Actions
- Thematic paper 3: Nature-Based Solutions: An approach for joint implementation of climate and biodiversity commitments
- Thematic paper 4: Good Governance for Integrated Climate and Biodiversity Policy-Making
- Thematic paper 5: From National to Local Implementation: A collaborative, multilevel effort to achieve joint climate and biodiversity goals
- Thematic paper 6: Delivering Financing for Joint Biodiversity and Climate Solutions
- Thematic paper 7: Synergies for Monitoring and Reporting on Climate and Biodiversity Actions: Global frameworks and national opportunities
- Thematic paper 8: The Role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Contributing to the Achievement of Global Climate and Biodiversity Goals
- Thematic paper 9: Enhancing Synergies to Advance Gender-Responsive Approaches Under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
- Thematic paper 10: Resources and Platforms for Capacity Building and Development for Synergistic Climate and Biodiversity Actions
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