This chapter discusses how more effective multilateral biodiversity agreements might be built post-2010, including creating targets that are likely to have more impact, and enhancing the links between science and policy. The chapter talks about three sets of biodiversity targets. First one is 'red' targets to address changes in biodiversity that have imminent and grave consequences for human well-being (the biosecurity agenda). Second is 'green' targets to implement the precautionary husbanding of the world's genetic resources (the conservation agenda). The last one is 'blue' targets to protect the long-term capacity of the system to maintain the supply of valued ecosystem services (the sustainability agenda). These targets should be defensible in terms of both the science of biodiversity and environmental change, and the science of the interactions between human society and the biosphere. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.