At the beginning of December, Montreal welcomes the imposing 15e Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity: people from the fields of governance, science, politics, civil society, decision-makers and lobbyists will be brought together. Everyone has a message and is eager to be heard, but the challenge is to be heard.
People from all corners of the world will talk about biodiversity, its staggering rate of loss, ideas to counter this trend and will offer many apologies for the little progress made. A small global village will emerge to discuss ways to mobilize public opinion, muster the necessary political will and bring political, financial and scientific actors together. It’s deja vu.
Inextricably linked crises
Like the notorious canary in the coal mine, the loss of biodiversity heralds an emergency. The water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat all depend on different types of interacting species.
66 million years ago, an asteroid wiped out virtually all the dinosaurs and three quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species.
Today, Earth is facing another mass extinction — and this time we are the culprits.
We are also responsible for the climate crisis, one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, ocean acidification can lead to imminent extinction of different types of life on Earth. Biodiversity loss leads to the degradation and even destruction of crucial ecosystems — forests and oceans — which further aggravates the climate crisis.
Moreover, the combined effect of climate change, biodiversity loss and other factors are likely to have a major impact on the peace that we still enjoy in much of the planet, although unfortunately, countries and regions are already suffering the consequences and are affected by the massive degradation of our ecosystems.
Our local and global governance systems will have to manage the many permutations of conflict that will emerge. Sharing less among many when we haven’t learned to share and preserve when we had more is not a recipe for a stable and prosperous world. Solving this complex planetary crisis is also a matter of concern in terms of security: those who deal with topics related to climate change and biodiversity loss are increasingly confronted with this new angle.
Get out of silos
The climate and biodiversity crises are therefore inextricably linked, and so are their solutions. While biodiversity loss and climate change are often treated separately, how to address these crises is closely linked. As Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), recently stated, we work in silos and we must move beyond them.
Conserved or restored habitats can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, intact mangroves can protect against more frequent extreme weather events, large preserved forests help regulate rainfall patterns, vibrant biodiversity is essential for our security eating. And the list continues.
The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 gave rise to three conventions which highlighted three threats: climate change, biodiversity and desertification. While each is the subject of periodic conferences of the parties (COP), climate change seems to predominate.
The fight against climate change has indeed enormous geopolitical and financial implications since the policies and government commitments that are adopted to fight against this crisis have consequences on the energy sector, one of the richest. While biodiversity loss or desertification do not receive the appropriate level of attention given the gravity of the situation.
Imperfect governance models
Will this COP15 renew global commitments to end the biodiversity crisis? A slim hope remains. However, the targets set in 2010, which expired in 2020, were not met. COP15 is likely to offer little or no reflection on why implementation of all of the 2010 targets has failed. These targets will simply be replaced by a new framework, the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which Member States are expected to adopt. This describes the obligations, individual and collective, of the Member States, aimed at protecting species and ecosystems.
Somehow, the nature and pace of this process does not seem to match the urgency of the situation and raises legitimate concern about our current institutional frameworks. Nevertheless, should we give a chance to this opportunity created by our imperfect models of global governance, even if the results may prove insufficient and late? COP15 must deliver results this time. We no longer have a choice.