MONTREAL (AP) – Negotiators at a United Nations conference on biodiversity reached a historic deal early Monday that would represent the largest-ever effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical funding to save the world’s biodiversity. world development.
The global picture comes a day before the end of the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity, or COP15, in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency of the conference, launched a new draft earlier in the day that gave a much-needed boost to the sometimes contentious talks.
The most significant part of the agreement is the commitment to protect by 2030 30% of the land and water considered important for biodiversity. Currently, 17% of land areas and 10% of marine areas are protected.
“There has never been a global conservation goal on this scale,” Brian O’Donnell, director of conservation group Campaign for Nature, told reporters. “That puts us in a position to protect biodiversity from collapse… We’re now in the range that scientists think would make a significant difference to biodiversity.”
The project also plans to raise $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a wide range of sources and work to eliminate or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the funding package, the framework plans to increase money going to poor countries to at least $20 billion a year by 2025, or roughly double what is provided now. That number will grow to $30 billion annually by 2030.
AP Photo/Sam McNeil, archive
Some advocates wanted tougher language on the subsidies that make food and fuel so cheap in many parts of the world. The document only calls for identifying subsidies by 2025 that can be reformed or phased out and working to reduce them by 2030.
“The new text is a mixed bag,” said Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation finance at The Nature Conservancy. “It contains some strong signals on funding and biodiversity, but falls short of targets from 10 years ago in terms of addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss in productive sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and infrastructure, and is therefore still at risk of be completely transformative.”
Ministers and government officials from about 190 countries generally agreed that protecting biodiversity should be a priority, and many compared the efforts to climate talks that ended last month in Egypt.
Climate change, along with habitat loss, pollution and development, has affected global biodiversity, with a 2019 estimate warning that a million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction within decades, a rate 1,000 times higher than expected . Humans use about 50,000 wild species regularly, and 1 in 5 of the world’s 8 billion people depend on these species for food and income, the report said.
But they have struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.
Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP
Funding was among the most contentious issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of Wednesday’s negotiations. They returned a few hours later.
Brazil, speaking on behalf of developing countries earlier in the week, said in a statement that a new financing mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion in annual financial subsidies to emerging economies by 2030.
“All the elements are there for a balance of unhappiness, which is the secret to reaching an agreement in the UN bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a Namibian negotiator who helps coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. “Everybody got a little bit of what they wanted, not necessarily all they wanted. Let’s see if there is a spirit of unity”.
Others praised the fact that the document recognizes the rights of indigenous communities. In previous biodiversity documents, the rights of indigenous peoples have often been ignored and rarely form part of wider discussions beyond a reference to their traditional knowledge. The framework would reaffirm the rights of indigenous peoples and ensure that they have a say in any decision-making process.
“It’s important that the rights of indigenous peoples exist, and while it’s not the exact wording of what was originally proposed, we think it’s a good compromise and addresses the concerns we have,” said Jennifer Corpuz, representative of the International Indigenous Biodiversity Forum . “We think it’s a good foundation for us to be able to implement the policy at the national level.”
But the Wildlife Conservation Society and other environmental groups feared the project would delay the 2050 goal of preventing species extinction, preserving the integrity of ecosystems and maintaining genetic diversity within populations. They fear that the timeline is not ambitious enough.
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