While negotiations between ministers are normally due to end on Saturday at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15), the most recent version of the text under negotiation reflects the “significant challenges” that remain, according to the Chinese presidency of the event, which nevertheless remains “very confident” of reaching an agreement at the finish line, set for Monday.
The passages in square brackets, and therefore still not the subject of a consensus on the part of the delegations, are indeed still very numerous. The target of protecting 30% of marine terrestrial natural environments remains in brackets and the countries have not yet agreed on the idea of achieving this target on a “global” or “national” scale.
On the question of the restoration of natural environments degraded by human activity, the text published on Saturday morning shows that the countries still have to find common ground on the minimum target, which could be 20% or 30% , according to the numbers that are still in square brackets.
Funding
On the crucial issue of financing the implementation of the global framework to protect biodiversity by 2030, countries agreed to “substantially” increase resources from public and private funds. But for the moment, they have not been able to specify an amount. The figure of 200 billion dollars is mentioned in the text, in brackets, as are the deadlines. Same thing for the amount of 100 billion dollars mentioned several times since the start of COP15 in Montreal.
Developing countries have made the financial question a major issue in the negotiations. It must be said that the implementation of a 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 196 member countries of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity have also ruled on the need to reduce the impacts of invasive species and their introduction into natural environments, but the target of reducing “at least 50%” of these introductions remain in square brackets. The idea of moving towards “sustainable” management of agricultural land and forestry is included in the text, but it is not yet clear whether this will concern “all” land, since the term is in square brackets. There is still no consensus on the inclusion of “fisheries” in this principle of sustainability.
With regard to subsidies harmful to biodiversity, the “2025” timetable remains to be negotiated and countries must always try to agree on whether to eliminate them, reduce them or reform them, but also on the amount of “500 billion dollars per year”, which remains subject to discussion.
“Major Challenges”
Although progress has been made since the start of COP15 on December 7, the December 19 deadline for the signature of the global framework for the protection of biodiversity suggests long hours of negotiations. “We still have major challenges ahead of us” for the last few days, “it is our common responsibility”, also underlined Saturday the Chinese Minister of the Environment, Huang Runqiu, president of the conference.
“There is a moral obligation” to stop the loss of biodiversity, say more than 3,100 researchers from 128 countries in an open letter on Saturday, worried about seeing the negotiations stall. “It is achievable if we act now, and decisively,” and “we owe it to ourselves and to future generations — we can’t wait any longer,” they said.
Because time is running out: 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, 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.
With Agence France-Presse