Lost in the maze of environmental diplomacy? Econario can save you.
More than five meters high, this robotic plant, created by a scientist and an artist, withers or blossoms according to the country announcements made at COP15 on biodiversity in Montreal.
As a symbol also of the complexity of the negotiations… Countries around the world are trying to agree on no less than twenty objectives to “make a peace pact with nature”. Clearly, it is a question of halting the fall in global biodiversity while there is still time.
“Econario is the thermometer of COP15 and it will show what happens if the negotiations go well: it will grow, or if they go badly: it will decrease,” Dutch artist Thijs Biersteker told AFP. origin of the work.
As the discussions progress, the number of countries that support the flagship objective of this COP15 is understood: to protect 30% of the land and oceans by 2030.
“As a data analyst, I love graphs and maps, but it doesn’t really help people understand the crisis we are currently going through,” explains Adriana De Palma, from the Museum of Natural History in London.
“We can predict what these announcements mean for biodiversity 20, 50 or 100 years from now,” she adds, saying she hopes this will allow people to realize the impact of “individual choices, such as those of companies or governments”.
The researcher is in talks with North American museums to lend them the work of art after the UN summit, before she returns to Europe.
Funding pledges made since the start of COP15 have made it possible to slightly increase the size of the robot plant. Everything is calculated using the Biodiversity Integrity Index (BII), set up by the Natural History Museum in London.
The indicator measures the percentage of a region’s natural biodiversity that persists. It combines data on ecosystems and species populations with data on human-induced pressures, such as land use.
For now, Econario alternates between pessimistic and optimistic scenarios. Countries around the world have until Monday to allow the plant to flourish.