By AFP
October 19, 2024
'The time for words and false promises is past,' Jane Goodall told AFP
- Copyright AFP JOEL SAGET
Madeleine DE BLIC
World-respected British primate expert Jane Goodall wants a coming United Nations summit on biodiversity to lead to action rather than “words and false promises”.
As officials from around 200 countries meet in the Colombian city of Cali for the COP16 meeting starting Monday, the indefatigable zoologist said there was little time left to reverse the downward slide.
“I hope that not only will some decisions be made to protect biodiversity… but that this will be followed by action because the time for words and false promises is past if we want to save the planet,” Goodall told AFP.
At 90, Goodall is still crisscrossing the globe in a bid to help defend the chimpanzee, who she first went to Tanzania to study more than 60 years ago.
A UN Messenger of Peace since 2002, Goodall has been outspoken about the damage done to nature.
But she also highlighted how other issues, notably climate change, were worsening the biodiversity crisis.
“The trouble is everything, all the problems that we face… they’re all interrelated.”
Taking her cue from a recent scientific evaluation, Goodall said the world had just “five years in which we can start slowing down climate change and so on”.
“Good news, there’s groups of people working on every one of the problems. Unfortunately, so many are working in their own little narrow path,” she said.
“You may solve one problem, and if you’re not thinking holistically, that may create another problem.”
– ‘Each individual matters’ –
Besides biodiversity, COP16 organisers have said Indigenous peoples will take an active part in the talks.
Even if Indigenous peoples have been all too often disappointed by the final decisions taken at biodiversity COPs, that progress and increased presence was hailed by Goodall.
“Fortunately, we’re beginning to listen to the voices of the Indigenous people. We’re beginning to learn from them some of the ways that they’ve lived in harmony with the environment,” she said.
Goodall also urged nations to tackle poverty to help protect the environment.
“We need to also alleviate poverty because very poor people destroy the environment in order to survive,” she said.
The scientist, who never travels without her plush toy monkey she calls “Mr H”, was in Paris to give a talk at UNESCO on Saturday.
Preaching the importance of keeping alive the hope humanity can save the world, Goodall came with the message: “Realise every day you make a difference.”
“Each individual matters. Each individual has a role to play, and every one of us makes some impact on the planet every single day, and we can choose what sort of impact we make,” she said.
“It’s not only up to government and big business. It’s up to all of us to make changes in our lives.”
– ‘Brave man’ Paul Watson –
Goodall likewise called for France’s President Emmanuel Macron to intervene on behalf of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson.
Subject to an extradition request from Japan, the 73-year-old US-Canadian activist was arrested in July in Greenland.
Watson has since wrote to Macron seeking asylum in France, his group Sea Shepherd said on Wednesday.
“I sincerely hope that President Macron will grant asylum to Paul Watson,” Goodall said.
“He’s a brave man. He’s been fighting a very, very unbelievably cruel industry,” she said, adding that the activist “has my full admiration”.
On Thursday, French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said France’s position on the matter was “not clear-cut”.
Japan accuses Watson of causing damage to a whaling ship in 2010 and injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers’ activities.
Madeleine DE BLIC
World-respected British primate expert Jane Goodall wants a coming United Nations summit on biodiversity to lead to action rather than “words and false promises”.
As officials from around 200 countries meet in the Colombian city of Cali for the COP16 meeting starting Monday, the indefatigable zoologist said there was little time left to reverse the downward slide.
“I hope that not only will some decisions be made to protect biodiversity… but that this will be followed by action because the time for words and false promises is past if we want to save the planet,” Goodall told AFP.
At 90, Goodall is still crisscrossing the globe in a bid to help defend the chimpanzee, who she first went to Tanzania to study more than 60 years ago.
A UN Messenger of Peace since 2002, Goodall has been outspoken about the damage done to nature.
But she also highlighted how other issues, notably climate change, were worsening the biodiversity crisis.
“The trouble is everything, all the problems that we face… they’re all interrelated.”
Taking her cue from a recent scientific evaluation, Goodall said the world had just “five years in which we can start slowing down climate change and so on”.
“Good news, there’s groups of people working on every one of the problems. Unfortunately, so many are working in their own little narrow path,” she said.
“You may solve one problem, and if you’re not thinking holistically, that may create another problem.”
– ‘Each individual matters’ –
Besides biodiversity, COP16 organisers have said Indigenous peoples will take an active part in the talks.
Even if Indigenous peoples have been all too often disappointed by the final decisions taken at biodiversity COPs, that progress and increased presence was hailed by Goodall.
“Fortunately, we’re beginning to listen to the voices of the Indigenous people. We’re beginning to learn from them some of the ways that they’ve lived in harmony with the environment,” she said.
Goodall also urged nations to tackle poverty to help protect the environment.
“We need to also alleviate poverty because very poor people destroy the environment in order to survive,” she said.
The scientist, who never travels without her plush toy monkey she calls “Mr H”, was in Paris to give a talk at UNESCO on Saturday.
Preaching the importance of keeping alive the hope humanity can save the world, Goodall came with the message: “Realise every day you make a difference.”
“Each individual matters. Each individual has a role to play, and every one of us makes some impact on the planet every single day, and we can choose what sort of impact we make,” she said.
“It’s not only up to government and big business. It’s up to all of us to make changes in our lives.”
– ‘Brave man’ Paul Watson –
Goodall likewise called for France’s President Emmanuel Macron to intervene on behalf of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson.
Subject to an extradition request from Japan, the 73-year-old US-Canadian activist was arrested in July in Greenland.
Watson has since wrote to Macron seeking asylum in France, his group Sea Shepherd said on Wednesday.
“I sincerely hope that President Macron will grant asylum to Paul Watson,” Goodall said.
“He’s a brave man. He’s been fighting a very, very unbelievably cruel industry,” she said, adding that the activist “has my full admiration”.
On Thursday, French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said France’s position on the matter was “not clear-cut”.
Japan accuses Watson of causing damage to a whaling ship in 2010 and injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers’ activities.
COP16: What’s at stake at the UN biodiversity conference
The UN's 16th annual conference on biodiversity – COP16 – kicks off Monday in Columbia with the world's pledges to halt humankind's destruction of nature put to the test. Building on pledges made at last year's conference, the near 200 participating countries now have to define a common framework to help meet biodiversity targets, namely placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under minimum protection by 2030.
Issued on: 20/10/2024 -
By: NEWS WIRES
Delivering on promises
Creating protected areas, restoring depleted land, cutting the use of pesticides, increasing funding for nature -- few of the targets humanity had previously set for 2020 have been reached.
To avoid repeating that failure, countries agreed at COP15 to create a monitoring mechanism, with common indicators to measure progress, and a possible review procedure.
But the details of this mechanism, crucial for holding countries to account, remain to be adopted.
Carrying out this negotiation will be the top agenda item of COP16 and its host Colombia, which wants to establish itself as a leader in the global fight to safeguard nature.
But parallel negotiations, notably financial, will also come into play.
Securing national plans
As of mid-October, only 29 countries out of 196 had submitted national biodiversity strategies to reflect their share of global efforts.
And 91 have submitted "national targets", or commitments on all or part of the targets, according to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
Several countries could publish their plan in Cali, and those of Colombia and Brazil are keenly awaited.
Some 12,000 delegates, including seven heads of state, are expected to attend COP16.
Under the spotlight, notably, will be the flagship target of the global framework: to place 30 percent of land and sea areas under minimum protection by 2030.
As of September, 8.35 percent of the seas and 17.5 percent of land were considered protected, according to the WWF environmental group, which uses preliminary data from the UN -- in other words, barely more than in 2022.
Unlocking funding
The efforts of rich countries to finance those of the developing world will be central to debates in Cali.
Developed countries have committed to providing $20 billion per year for biodiversity by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.
By 2022, $15.4 billion had been raised, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Developing countries will also revive their calls for creating an autonomous fund, which is a major point of contention for rich countries, which are categorically opposed to setting up multiple funds.
To unlock private finance, biodiversity credits will be another major issue.
Biopiracy
"Biopiracy" -- the use of genetic resources in everything from cosmetics to seeds, medicines, biotechnology and food supplements without the agreement of those who preserve this traditional knowledge -- is a particularly knotty issue in negotiations.
Since 2014, the Nagoya protocol, which stipulates that persons providing genetic resources or traditional knowledge should benefit from the advantages arising from their use, has made it possible to pay for each use of a plant or animal.
However, these resources have become digitised genetic sequences or DSI (Digital Sequence Information) that almost exclusively benefit rich economies.
Resolving this is a priority for many developing countries and an agreement could be found in Cali to establish a global profit-sharing scheme.
But which companies will contribute? Will it be on a voluntary or compulsory basis? And how will the money be distributed?
"If a mandatory contribution of 0.1 percent is adopted, this potentially represents a billion dollars," said Sebastien Treyer, executive director of French think tank Iddri.
Indigenous populations
Indigenous populations are well represented at biodiversity COPs but often emerge the most disappointed by final decisions.
This year, they intend to use the summit taking place on the edge of the Amazon to have their rights and ancestral knowledge recognised, after years of marginalisation and forced displacement.
(AFP)
The UN's 16th annual conference on biodiversity – COP16 – kicks off Monday in Columbia with the world's pledges to halt humankind's destruction of nature put to the test. Building on pledges made at last year's conference, the near 200 participating countries now have to define a common framework to help meet biodiversity targets, namely placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under minimum protection by 2030.
Issued on: 20/10/2024 -
By: NEWS WIRES
Chestnut-fronted macaw fly previous to the COP16 Summit in Cali, Valle del Cauca Department, Colombia, on October 17, 2024. © Joaquin Sarmiento, AFP
The world's pledges to halt humankind's destruction of nature will be put to the test when the 16th UN conference on biodiversity opens Monday in Colombia.
The COP16, held in the city of Cali through November 1, is the first meeting of the international community since the adoption two years ago of an unprecedented roadmap to achieve that goal.
But putting that agreement into practice risks not moving fast enough to stop the destruction of land, oceans and species by a 2030 target date.
How will COP16 ensure countries achieve the 23 targets of the "Global Biodiversity Framework"? Can it unlock the billions of dollars needed? Can it guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples?
Here's a summary of what's at stake:
The world's pledges to halt humankind's destruction of nature will be put to the test when the 16th UN conference on biodiversity opens Monday in Colombia.
The COP16, held in the city of Cali through November 1, is the first meeting of the international community since the adoption two years ago of an unprecedented roadmap to achieve that goal.
But putting that agreement into practice risks not moving fast enough to stop the destruction of land, oceans and species by a 2030 target date.
How will COP16 ensure countries achieve the 23 targets of the "Global Biodiversity Framework"? Can it unlock the billions of dollars needed? Can it guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples?
Here's a summary of what's at stake:
Delivering on promises
Creating protected areas, restoring depleted land, cutting the use of pesticides, increasing funding for nature -- few of the targets humanity had previously set for 2020 have been reached.
To avoid repeating that failure, countries agreed at COP15 to create a monitoring mechanism, with common indicators to measure progress, and a possible review procedure.
But the details of this mechanism, crucial for holding countries to account, remain to be adopted.
Carrying out this negotiation will be the top agenda item of COP16 and its host Colombia, which wants to establish itself as a leader in the global fight to safeguard nature.
But parallel negotiations, notably financial, will also come into play.
Securing national plans
As of mid-October, only 29 countries out of 196 had submitted national biodiversity strategies to reflect their share of global efforts.
And 91 have submitted "national targets", or commitments on all or part of the targets, according to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
Several countries could publish their plan in Cali, and those of Colombia and Brazil are keenly awaited.
Some 12,000 delegates, including seven heads of state, are expected to attend COP16.
Under the spotlight, notably, will be the flagship target of the global framework: to place 30 percent of land and sea areas under minimum protection by 2030.
As of September, 8.35 percent of the seas and 17.5 percent of land were considered protected, according to the WWF environmental group, which uses preliminary data from the UN -- in other words, barely more than in 2022.
Unlocking funding
The efforts of rich countries to finance those of the developing world will be central to debates in Cali.
Developed countries have committed to providing $20 billion per year for biodiversity by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.
By 2022, $15.4 billion had been raised, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Developing countries will also revive their calls for creating an autonomous fund, which is a major point of contention for rich countries, which are categorically opposed to setting up multiple funds.
To unlock private finance, biodiversity credits will be another major issue.
Biopiracy
"Biopiracy" -- the use of genetic resources in everything from cosmetics to seeds, medicines, biotechnology and food supplements without the agreement of those who preserve this traditional knowledge -- is a particularly knotty issue in negotiations.
Since 2014, the Nagoya protocol, which stipulates that persons providing genetic resources or traditional knowledge should benefit from the advantages arising from their use, has made it possible to pay for each use of a plant or animal.
However, these resources have become digitised genetic sequences or DSI (Digital Sequence Information) that almost exclusively benefit rich economies.
Resolving this is a priority for many developing countries and an agreement could be found in Cali to establish a global profit-sharing scheme.
But which companies will contribute? Will it be on a voluntary or compulsory basis? And how will the money be distributed?
"If a mandatory contribution of 0.1 percent is adopted, this potentially represents a billion dollars," said Sebastien Treyer, executive director of French think tank Iddri.
Indigenous populations
Indigenous populations are well represented at biodiversity COPs but often emerge the most disappointed by final decisions.
This year, they intend to use the summit taking place on the edge of the Amazon to have their rights and ancestral knowledge recognised, after years of marginalisation and forced displacement.
(AFP)
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