The United Nations 15th Biodiversity Conference of the Parties kicks off today, Wednesday, December 7, in Montreal, Canada, after a two-year postponement due to the pandemic.
The conference, or COP15, as it is known, will see thousands of delegates representing 192 countries spend the next two weeks hammering out a once-in-a-decade agreement which aims to build a more sustainable relationship between humans and nature's biodiversity.
If all goes according to plan, the conference will produce a new agreement outlining global biodiversity and conservation goals for the next decade. The conference is supposed to wrap up on December 19, but negotiations may run into overtime.
The Aichi biodiversity targets were the last agreed upon at the 2010 COP10 conference in Nagoya, Japan. Governments pledged then to halve the loss of natural habitats and expand nature reserves to 17% of the world’s land area by 2020, among other targets.
Nature and climate are two sides of the same coin. The UN says that the negotiations at the conference will play vital roles in advancing policy responses to the climate and nature crises and providing clarity for the private sector on global goals and pathways for action.
COP15 has the potential to be the “Paris Moment for Nature” as it brings to a close the negotiations for a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework that should ensure biodiversity loss is halted and reversed by 2030 and we live in harmony with nature by 2050.
The Earth is experiencing the sixth mass extinction. We are losing swathes of biodiversity every day, which threatens the very foundations of human civilisation. We have surpassed the limits of what the Earth can sustainably provide for us.
The Guardians’ Patrick Greenfield reported on Monday that “the fate of humans is inextricably linked with nature. The insurance group Swiss Re estimates that more than half of global GDP is dependent on the healthy functioning of the natural world.”
The biodiversity conference is different from the climate conference, which has the clear goal of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
The convention on biological diversity has three aims: the sustainable use of biodiversity, sharing benefits from genetic resources, and conservation. Within these aims, negotiators will have to agree on a final package on topics ranging from harmful agricultural subsidies to the spread of invasive species.
You may have come across the term “30 by 30” recently. This is a draft target to protect 30% of land and sea by the year 2030. But with more than 20 other draft targets making up the final text, experts warned that expanding protected areas alone is not enough to halt the decline of nature.
Delegates and negotiators will be discussing targets which include proposals to limit the spread of invasive species, reduce and re-purpose $500 billion (R8.6 trillion) a year of environmentally harmful subsidies, and mandatory nature disclosures for all large businesses.
Although there is a long way to go for any of these agreements to pass and implement, everything may change in Montreal.
IOL