After arduous negotiations, the international community has finally adopted a historic agreement that is supposed to help halt the decline of biodiversity and resources essential for the survival of humanity. We will now have to implement an agreement that provides for the protection of 30% of natural land and marine environments by the end of the decade, hundreds of billions of dollars in funding and major changes in our way of life.
The “Kunming-Montreal agreement” was adopted by consensus in the middle of the night from Sunday to Monday, despite the opposition expressed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which considers the “mobilization of financial resources” unsatisfactory for the implementation of this “peace pact with nature”.
“Together we have taken a historic step,” reacted the federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, who actively participated in the negotiations held over the past few days at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, as part of this United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) chaired by China.
The agreement, on an unprecedented scale in history, calls on the international community to protect 30% of natural land and sea environments by 2030. This means that very significant efforts will be necessary over the next seven years, since at present, 17% of terrestrial ecosystems and about 10% of marine environments are protected.
In addition to the conservation of natural environments, which will have to prioritize areas of great “importance” for biodiversity, the document indicates that countries must aim for the “restoration” of at least 30% of areas “degraded” by the activity. human. During the COP15, several considered this objective essential to slow down the erosion of life, but also to fight against the climate crisis.
Funding
On the issue of financing the implementation of the global framework, which threatened to derail the negotiations, the COP15 presidency succeeded in breaking the impasse by proposing on Sunday a substantial increase in financial support from developed countries to developing countries. : 20 billion dollars per year by 2025, then 30 billion dollars by 2030.
Within the framework of the conference, several developing countries demanded much more substantial commitments, ie an annual budget of 100 billion dollars per year. This amount represented at least ten times the current international aid for biodiversity.
However, the agreement signed in Montreal aims to mobilize “at least” 200 billion dollars each year, by the end of the decade. These funds should be public and private in nature.
It must be said that the implementation of the biodiversity protection framework will involve hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030, in particular to protect the particularly rich ecosystems of certain countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. These funds will, for example, be necessary to protect natural land and sea environments, transform agricultural practices, reduce the use of pesticides and pollution, and also restore ecosystems degraded by human activity.
The adopted text also stresses the need to eliminate, reduce or “reform” subsidies harmful to biodiversity. These can, for example, be used to support unsustainable fisheries or harmful agricultural practices. By 2030, we aim to reduce these subsidies by $500 billion.
Pollution
The reduction of the “risks” represented by “all sources” of pollution by 2030 is also included in the draft agreement, which specifies that they should be reduced “to levels which are not harmful to biodiversity and functioning of ecosystems. With regard to “plastic pollution”, the need to reduce and gradually eliminate it is indicated.
This “target seven” does not, however, provide a quantified target for reducing the quantities of pesticides, rather evoking the need to “reduce the overall risk” represented by these products widely used in the world.
The delegations nevertheless committed to turning to agriculture, forestry and fisheries that integrate practices favorable to biodiversity. And to reduce the pressure of our way of life on ecosystems, we hope to reduce food waste by 50%, but also “reduce overconsumption and waste production”.
The 23 targets drafted after years of negotiations must achieve global goals, such as maintaining the “integrity, connectivity and resilience of all ecosystems” and halting species extinction attributable to human activity.
Implementation
Welcoming the conclusion of this agreement, the director of international climate diplomacy of the Climate Action Network Canada, Eddy Perez, spoke of the opening of “a new era of transformation and solidarity” which must also make it possible to put an end to ” mass extinctions that we are witnessing”.
“The fulfillment of the promises of the agreement will depend on its implementation at the national level”, he added. “Without an escalation mechanism, accountability remains weak. It will therefore be crucial for civil society to continue to mobilize and hold governments to account. »
According to him, the agreement requires countries like Canada to quickly implement the measures that will make it possible to achieve the “targets” listed in the text. The federal government, like that of Quebec, has already committed to protecting 30% of natural terrestrial and marine environments by 2030.
“Governments have chosen the right side of history in Montreal, but history will judge us if we do not respect the commitments made today,” warned World Wildlife Fund Director General Marco Lambertini. The organization fears the slowness in implementing this agreement, but also in obtaining the necessary funding for developing countries.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, believes that the agreement is complementary to that of Paris on the climate. “The world now has two fields of action to move towards a sustainable economy by 2050,” she said on Monday.
The challenge for the next few years is colossal to say the least: 70% of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded by human activity and more than a million species are threatened with extinction on the planet. Several experts are now talking about the idea that humanity has triggered a “sixth mass extinction”, the first since the disappearance of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.
And beyond the moral implications mentioned by some COP15 participants, the whole world’s prosperity is at stake, say the experts: more than half of the world’s GDP depends on nature and its services. What’s more, the majority of drugs prescribed in industrialized countries are derived from natural compounds produced by animals and plants.
With Agence France-Presse