COP15 on biodiversity | The final sprint broken down

Negotiations continued very late into the night from Sunday to Monday in Montreal. A plenary session first announced at 6 p.m., postponed more than once in the evening, finally started at 2:55 a.m. Behind the scenes, the negotiators have multiplied meetings to snatch a “historic” agreement.

An agreement in sight

At the end of the afternoon on Sunday, several observers reported to The Press that an agreement is in sight and that it could even be adopted the same evening, 24 hours before the official closing of COP15 in Montreal. With a smirk, Eddy Perez, director of international climate diplomacy at the Climate Action Network, invites us to stay at the Palais des Congrès for the whole evening. On Twitter, French journalist Thomas Baïetto wrote at 9:56 p.m. that “a European negotiator confirms that this will be resolved this evening, one day in advance”. “The Chinese presidency was very cunning, it tabled a text that was not ‘shit’, we were all stuck,” his source confided to him.

It gets complicated…

Time passes, and no plenary session in sight, a sign that the negotiations are still stalling. Still on Twitter, journalist Thomas Baïetto wrote at 10:46 p.m. that “the Minister [français de la Transition écologique] Christophe Béchu rather believes in the adoption of the agreement tomorrow morning: “We don’t have the text yet, we have to translate it into all the languages”, he explains. Sources also tell The Press that the European Union and Brazil are having their ears pulled. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) says it is dissatisfied with the agreement that is on the table. Argentina would also kick in the stretchers.

Intense negotiations

The evening progresses and the negotiators understand that the main opposition to the adoption of an agreement comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In interview with The Presson Monday, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, indicated that it was while working on a minor modification, which was a question of syntax, “that we understood that the Congo [RDC] didn’t want to know anything and that Cameroon was with them, and Uganda”. Steven Guilbeault specifies that the Chinese presidency has asked Canada to meet the representatives of Cameroon. It was also asked if the Canadians “had any contacts in the Congo”. “I said no, we don’t have many, but we will ask the British, the Americans, who have more. We did that for several hours, ”added Mr. Guilbeault. A source told Monday The Press that the UK did intervene with the DRC.

Drama in the middle of the night

The plenary session opened eight hours late. It is 2:55 a.m. After explaining the course of the meeting, the President of COP15, the Chinese Minister of Ecology and the Environment, Huang Runqiu, gives the floor to the Democratic Republic of Congo. After a very long preamble, his representative affirmed that his country “is unable to adopt the global framework in its current state”. The DRC is not satisfied with the sums provided for in the agreement for the international financing of developing countries. There is consternation in the room. Rare applause is heard after the Congolese intervention.

Mexico jumps into the arena

The representative of Mexico asked to speak after the DRC. “There will never be a perfect text, perfection is the enemy of good,” she says. She asked the President to proceed with the adoption of all the documents which had been made available around 2.30 am. She ends her speech by saying: “Tomorrow is my birthday, and the best gift I could ask for is the adoption of the post-2020 global framework. A thunderous applause is heard. Almost all the delegates present rose to show their support for Mexico. It’s 3:20 in the morning.

A pause before adoption

The President of COP15 consults with his team and members of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity for several minutes. The tension is high in the room. Around 3:30 am, Huang Runqiu opens his microphone. In Mandarin, he declares that all the documents constituting the new Kunming-Montreal agreement, including the new global framework for biodiversity, are adopted. With a symbolic gesture, he strikes the hammer, formalizing their adoption. The room rises again and strongly applauds the decision. However, Cameroon and Uganda are protesting what they consider to be “an abuse of process”. They nevertheless indicate that they support the agreement.

The DRC rallies

Monday afternoon, rumors are circulating that the Democratic Republic of Congo may try to challenge the adoption of the agreement. On Twitter, the daily journalist The Guardian Patrick Greenfield writes that an agreement would have been reached to drop the objections submitted the day before by the DRC. One would, however, expect some form of apology from the Chinese presidency. In the room where a new plenary session is planned, representatives of China discuss long minutes with the Congolese representative. President Runqiu finally opened the plenary session at the end of the afternoon and immediately gave the floor to the DRC. “My country, the DRC, […] also welcomes the adoption of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework and its five other decisions that accompanied it,” she said from the outset. of target 19 (on international financing) “appears clearly in the final report of COP15”. “I listened to what you said. I take good note of it, ”replied the president.

With the collaboration of Jean-Thomas Léveillé, The Press