(Montreal) The global pact to save nature, being negotiated at COP15, will be condemned to failure, whatever its ambitions, if the countries do not agree on real mechanisms for the application and revision of the commitments, several environmental activists denounced on Saturday.
The general opinion is that the absence of such mechanisms played a major role in the failure of the previous ten-year pact, adopted in 2010 in Aichi, Japan, of which almost no objective of safeguarding ecosystems was achieved.
“Strong text, which commits countries to reviewing progress against global goals and scaling up action over time, is essential for governments to be held accountable,” said Guido Broekhoven, senior official at WWF International. , “very concerned” by the progress of the negotiations on this point.
Binding implementation mechanisms are thus at the heart of the Paris agreement on the fight against global warming.
However, the current text on biodiversity only “urges” countries to take into account a global assessment scheduled in four years. Without commitment on a possible national effort if ever the trajectory was not kept.
So what we have on the table is hardly an encouragement to perhaps do better. And there is no compliance mechanism under discussion that could help organize the necessary conversation between governments about how to cooperate better.
Aleksandar Rankovic, adviser to the NGO Avaaz
Since Tuesday, COP15 has brought together nearly 5,000 delegates from 193 countries in Montreal to try to finalize by December 19 “a pact of peace with nature”, providing for twenty key objectives to stop the destruction of natural environments. by the end of the decade.
“If the biodiversity objectives are the compass, the implementation is the real ship to lead us there”, abounds Li Shuo, adviser at Greenpeace. But “the negotiations lack essential elements that will guarantee countries to intensify their action over time: it’s like a bicycle without the gears”.
“There have been some advances”, nevertheless nuances Juliette Landry, researcher at IDDRI, pointing out that the countries have for the first time adopted common planning and reporting tables, which will allow evaluation and comparisons between them. .
Saturday was supposed to be the last day for delegates to work on this vital chapter, before their environment ministers arrive on December 15 for the home stretch of the negotiations. Under pressure, the principle of an additional meeting next week was finally approved.