One of the indicators that shows whether the delegates of the various countries gathered at COP15 on biodiversity are close to an agreement is the number of “brackets” in the draft of the declaration, brackets which sometimes hide strategies policies.
In a high-security area of the Palais des Congrès, where the headquarters of the United Nations leaders are located, the co-chair of the working group on the global biodiversity framework received The Canadian Press in an office whose walls are lined with yellow “Post-it” stickers representing the various meetings he has to attend.
Every hour counts and the task is immense, by December 19, his team must put on paper the plan which must make it possible to reverse the decline of biodiversity, which involves hours of negotiations with the representatives of the different countries.
“We estimate that we probably need another 60 hours of negotiation to arrive at a text that is in good enough shape to be presented to the ministers”, explained Wednesday afternoon the Canadian Basile Van Havre, who is at the head of a handful of people whose task is to draft the declaration that the 196 countries must sign by the end of the conference.
When the whole planet is negotiating, there are bound to be debates on the meaning of words, on the wording of sentences, on the use of a comma.
A first draft of the text was written in June in Nairobi and as of Wednesday, the declaration included 22 objectives on 22 pages, but also 1400 brackets, or 700 pairs of brackets.
Square brackets, or parentheses, indicate areas of the text where there is no consensus.
The objective is to remove brackets from the text as the COP progresses, but since the start of negotiations in Montreal last Friday, the brackets have not decreased, rather they have increased.
However, the situation does not worry Basile Van Havre for the moment.
“I see a lot of articles where we are very close to the solution. It’s about the negotiators coming in with a little more flexibility. These are not insoluble things, not at all”.
The headline goal of COP15 is for all countries to commit to protecting at least 30% of their land and sea areas by 2030 – the so-called “30 x 30” goal. .
Currently, even the “30%” is enclosed in square brackets in the text.
“To guarantee and allow at least [30 %] of [tous les [—-] and of [—-]] [à l’échelle mondiale] [au niveau national]especially [les zones clés pour la biodiversité [, les zones d’importance écologique ou biologique, les écosystèmes menacés] and others]areas of particular importance for biodiversity [et les fonctions et services écosystémiques] are [efficacement] preserved through [systèmes] [réseaux] [efficacement] [bien] managed…,” read the draft statement on Wednesday afternoon.
In the opinion of the co-drafter of the statement, the square brackets surrounding the 30% target risk being among the last to be removed.
“I would be very happy if tomorrow morning we get up and remove these brackets, but I expect that many countries will want to ensure that the resources to put in place this target are settled before being released. agreement with this target,” said the co-chair of the global framework working group.
The question of financing is obviously at the heart of the negotiations and several developing countries are asking rich countries to help them finance projects that would make it possible to achieve 30% protection of territories, as recalled by Minister of the Environment Steven Guilbeault to The Canadian Press.
“To be ready to accept a target like that (the protection of 30% of the territories), there are countries which want to be certain that the money will be there and others which say ‘so that we put the money on the table, the target has to be ambitious”, this is the kind of conversation we have and for which we try to find common ground and I think we will get there. »
Regarding the number of square brackets that has increased in the draft of the declaration, Steven Guilbeault is not worried. According to him, brackets sometimes hide political strategies.
“I would like to tell you that it keeps me up at night, but the reality is that it is not unusual in a UN process like this […] sometimes it’s just people trying to keep options open, options on the table before they come to an agreement. It is a practice which is quite common, but which one can at the limit deplore”.
Russia plays spoilsport
The Federal Environment Minister also noted that Moscow seems to want to play spoilsport since the start of the conference in Montreal.
“Russia is playing a very unconstructive role in the negotiations. We oppose to oppose, we put on a little show. Will Russia alone be able to stop the will of 190 countries to agree, under a Chinese presidency? I think not, we can afford to doubt it. »
Basile Van Havre explained that Russia had “blocked a resolution” on Monday evening.
“It was a resolution on a question of the role of women and girls and it was clearly an instruction that came from the capital (Moscow) and we saw an extremely firm position from the Russians”. He added that this type of situation “is part of any international negotiation” and “that we are capable, in our system, of accommodating this type of problem. »