Issued on: 07/10/2021
Destruction of ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest in Brazil also threatens human lives and health
MAURO PIMENTEL AFP/File
Paris (AFP)
China will on Monday launch a crucial biodiversity summit to build political momentum to halt and even reverse the destruction of nature by man.
As the human population climbs toward nine billion by mid-century, animals are being crowded, eaten, snared, poisoned, poached, hawked and hunted out of existence.
Forests have been burned to the ground to grow commercial crops, and ecosystems that sustain life on the planet ravaged.
The virtual opening of the COP15 summit will transfer leadership from Egypt, which presided over the last gathering in 2018, to China.
During the talks, Beijing will orchestrate high-level online meetings with ministers from scores of countries in a drive to build political momentum.
China -- by far the world's biggest emitter of carbon pollution that drives global warming and harms the environment -- will also issue a "Kunming Declaration" that will set the tone for its leadership, observers say.
"This declaration, we hope, will further underline and recognise the importance of biodiversity for human health," said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a treaty ratified by 195 countries and the European Union.
"It will also recognise the importance of mainstreaming biodiversity in decision-making and will serve also as a tool to create the political momentum," she told AFP.
Since gathering in person in Rome last year, delegates have negotiated across cyberspace.
- Urgent targets -
Next week's online meet will be followed by in-person talks in Kunming from April 25 to May 8, with an intermediate session, also face-to-face, in Geneva in January.
The November COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, meanwhile, will seek to tame the increasingly devastating effects of global warming.
Discussions will focus on a negotiated draft text called the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
Published in July, its stated goal is "living in harmony with nature" by 2050.
That "harmony" will be defined by mid-century goals with 2030 reality checks in the form of 21 "targets for urgent action" over the next decade.
Targets include declaring 30 percent of land and sea as protected areas, the end of plastic waste in the oceans, and sustainable management of agriculture, aquaculture and forestry.
Paris (AFP)
China will on Monday launch a crucial biodiversity summit to build political momentum to halt and even reverse the destruction of nature by man.
As the human population climbs toward nine billion by mid-century, animals are being crowded, eaten, snared, poisoned, poached, hawked and hunted out of existence.
Forests have been burned to the ground to grow commercial crops, and ecosystems that sustain life on the planet ravaged.
The virtual opening of the COP15 summit will transfer leadership from Egypt, which presided over the last gathering in 2018, to China.
During the talks, Beijing will orchestrate high-level online meetings with ministers from scores of countries in a drive to build political momentum.
China -- by far the world's biggest emitter of carbon pollution that drives global warming and harms the environment -- will also issue a "Kunming Declaration" that will set the tone for its leadership, observers say.
"This declaration, we hope, will further underline and recognise the importance of biodiversity for human health," said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a treaty ratified by 195 countries and the European Union.
"It will also recognise the importance of mainstreaming biodiversity in decision-making and will serve also as a tool to create the political momentum," she told AFP.
Since gathering in person in Rome last year, delegates have negotiated across cyberspace.
- Urgent targets -
Next week's online meet will be followed by in-person talks in Kunming from April 25 to May 8, with an intermediate session, also face-to-face, in Geneva in January.
The November COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, meanwhile, will seek to tame the increasingly devastating effects of global warming.
Discussions will focus on a negotiated draft text called the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
Published in July, its stated goal is "living in harmony with nature" by 2050.
That "harmony" will be defined by mid-century goals with 2030 reality checks in the form of 21 "targets for urgent action" over the next decade.
Targets include declaring 30 percent of land and sea as protected areas, the end of plastic waste in the oceans, and sustainable management of agriculture, aquaculture and forestry.
Financial targets include boosting investment in biodiversity protection to $200 billion per year within a decade
SAEED KHAN AFP/File
Financial targets include boosting investment in biodiversity protection to $200 billion per year within a decade, while reducing subsidies for environmentally harmful industries by "at least US $500 billion per year".
It asks that individual governments implement strategies and devise reporting methods to make it easier to measure progress.
The document insists that follow-up is crucial to ensure targets do not remain a list of empty promises.
- 'Sad truth' -
Sharp divisions remain.
France and Costa Rica are among a coalition of support for the initiative to declare 30 percent of oceans and lands protected areas before 2030.
But when scientists called for more ambitious protection of half of Earth's biodiversity, Brazil and South Africa strongly opposed.
Other sources of tension surround financing, with developing nations asking rich countries to foot the bill for their ecological transitions.
Financial targets include boosting investment in biodiversity protection to $200 billion per year within a decade, while reducing subsidies for environmentally harmful industries by "at least US $500 billion per year".
It asks that individual governments implement strategies and devise reporting methods to make it easier to measure progress.
The document insists that follow-up is crucial to ensure targets do not remain a list of empty promises.
- 'Sad truth' -
Sharp divisions remain.
France and Costa Rica are among a coalition of support for the initiative to declare 30 percent of oceans and lands protected areas before 2030.
But when scientists called for more ambitious protection of half of Earth's biodiversity, Brazil and South Africa strongly opposed.
Other sources of tension surround financing, with developing nations asking rich countries to foot the bill for their ecological transitions.
France and Costa Rica are among a coalition of support for the initiative to declare 30 percent of oceans and lands protected areas before 2030
Ezequiel BECERRA AFP/File
These issues will be at the heart of negotiation sessions set to take place in Geneva in January 2022.
"It is concerning that these issues have not been dealt with sufficiently," said Li Shuo, global policy advisor for Greenpeace China.
"The sad truth is countries simply don't care about biodiversity in other countries as much as they do for emissions others pump into the air," he told AFP, referring to the carbon pollution that drives global warming.
But while the protection of nature isn't getting the kind of buzz the climate has been able to generate, biodiversity has gotten more visibility than it used to.
At the end of September Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg joined other philanthropists in pledging $5 billion by 2030 for biodiversity restoration and conservation.
© 2021 AFP
These issues will be at the heart of negotiation sessions set to take place in Geneva in January 2022.
"It is concerning that these issues have not been dealt with sufficiently," said Li Shuo, global policy advisor for Greenpeace China.
"The sad truth is countries simply don't care about biodiversity in other countries as much as they do for emissions others pump into the air," he told AFP, referring to the carbon pollution that drives global warming.
But while the protection of nature isn't getting the kind of buzz the climate has been able to generate, biodiversity has gotten more visibility than it used to.
At the end of September Jeff Bezos and Mike Bloomberg joined other philanthropists in pledging $5 billion by 2030 for biodiversity restoration and conservation.
© 2021 AFP
UN summit to tackle 'unprecedented' biodiversity threats
Issued on: 07/10/2021 -
The UN's COP15 summit beginning next week aims to tackle the fight against pollution, protecting ecosystems and preventing mass extinction
Pablo PORCIUNCULA BRUNE AFP/File
Paris (AFP)
Just weeks before the crucial COP26 climate conference, another global UN summit -- this one tasked with reversing the destruction of nature -- officially kicks off next week in Kunming, China.
Focusing on biodiversity, COP15 is less well known than its sister climate summit but deals with issues that are no less vital to the health of the planet, such as fighting pollution, protecting ecosystems and preventing mass extinction.
The online session beginning on Monday will be followed by a face-to-face gathering in late April, where a final pact for nature will be hammered out.
- Who is involved? -
Discussions at the COP15 are grounded in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a treaty ratified by 195 countries and the European Union -- but not the United States, the world's biggest historical polluter. Parties meet every two years.
The CBD was drafted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio. Its stated goals are to preserve the diversity of species on Earth and set guidelines on how to exploit natural resources sustainably and justly.
This year's gathering, originally set for 2020, was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Why does nature need protection? -
Plants and animals are disappearing at an accelerating rate due to human activity -- habitat encroachment, over-exploitation, pollution, the spread of invasive species and, more recently, climate change.
"Biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates," CBD executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told AFP in an interview.
"About one million animal and plant species out of 8.1 million are threatened with extinction -- more than ever before in human history."
Humanity's expanding footprint is also undermining the ecosystems that produce the clean air, drinkable water, food, medicine and raw materials we need to survive.
"Our relationship with nature must change," said Maruma Mrema.
The Covid-19 pandemic, thought to have originated from a virus in wild animals, is a "brutal reminder" of the price we can pay for neglecting or abusing nature, she said.
- What has the CBD achieved? -
At the 2010 biodiversity summit in Aichi, Japan, CBD member states laid out 20 goals to preserve biological diversity and reduce human pressures on the environment, setting a 2020 deadline for achieving them.
None of the objectives was fulfilled by that deadline, and -- with a few exceptions -- conditions are generally worse today than when the goals were first set.
This year's negotiations will likely see a new set of targets designed to allow our species to "live in harmony with nature", with a 2050 deadline and 2030 checkpoints.
- What are this year's goals? -
The draft text under negotiation, the Framework Biodiversity Convention, provisionally sets 21 "targets" for 2030.
These include according protected status to 30 percent of lands and oceans, a measure supported by a broad coalition of nations, including France and Costa Rica.
Another goal is to halve the use of fertilisers so that less of the nitrogen-rich substance leaches into fresh and ocean waters.
The draft pact also calls for reducing pesticide use by at least two thirds, and for halting the discharge of plastic waste entirely.
Another measure would see subsidies for environmentally harmful industries reduced by "at least $500 billion per year".
Without money and enforcement, however, these measures risk becoming empty promises, experts warn.
- Are COP15 and COP26 linked? -
Yes and no. Negotiations under the two conventions unfold on separate tracks and do not intersect. But parties to both treaties are increasingly looking for overlapping solutions.
"We cannot solve climate change without biodiversity and we cannot solve biodiversity loss without climate change," Maruma Mrema said.
"They are two intertwined crises and they need to be addressed together."
Healthy ecosystems -- especially forest and oceans -- make better carbon sinks to absorb CO2 pollution.
These in turn are vital to keep global warming down to levels that are survivable for humanity and other species.
- What is China's role? -
Maruma Mrema says that China's status as host for the negotiations means the world's top carbon polluter and most populous nation will be "taking global leadership on the biodiversity agenda".
A statement known as the Kunming Declaration to be unveiled at the opening next week will set the tone for China's leadership, said Li Shuo, global policy advisor for Greenpeace China.
"Beijing has the task of rescuing a weak environmental convention from the verge of a reputational collapse," he said.
"It carries the mission to boost biodiversity protection to the same rank as climate change, a task that has proven beyond its reach so far."
© 2021 AFP
Paris (AFP)
Just weeks before the crucial COP26 climate conference, another global UN summit -- this one tasked with reversing the destruction of nature -- officially kicks off next week in Kunming, China.
Focusing on biodiversity, COP15 is less well known than its sister climate summit but deals with issues that are no less vital to the health of the planet, such as fighting pollution, protecting ecosystems and preventing mass extinction.
The online session beginning on Monday will be followed by a face-to-face gathering in late April, where a final pact for nature will be hammered out.
- Who is involved? -
Discussions at the COP15 are grounded in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a treaty ratified by 195 countries and the European Union -- but not the United States, the world's biggest historical polluter. Parties meet every two years.
The CBD was drafted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio. Its stated goals are to preserve the diversity of species on Earth and set guidelines on how to exploit natural resources sustainably and justly.
This year's gathering, originally set for 2020, was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Why does nature need protection? -
Plants and animals are disappearing at an accelerating rate due to human activity -- habitat encroachment, over-exploitation, pollution, the spread of invasive species and, more recently, climate change.
"Biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates," CBD executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told AFP in an interview.
"About one million animal and plant species out of 8.1 million are threatened with extinction -- more than ever before in human history."
Humanity's expanding footprint is also undermining the ecosystems that produce the clean air, drinkable water, food, medicine and raw materials we need to survive.
"Our relationship with nature must change," said Maruma Mrema.
The Covid-19 pandemic, thought to have originated from a virus in wild animals, is a "brutal reminder" of the price we can pay for neglecting or abusing nature, she said.
- What has the CBD achieved? -
At the 2010 biodiversity summit in Aichi, Japan, CBD member states laid out 20 goals to preserve biological diversity and reduce human pressures on the environment, setting a 2020 deadline for achieving them.
None of the objectives was fulfilled by that deadline, and -- with a few exceptions -- conditions are generally worse today than when the goals were first set.
This year's negotiations will likely see a new set of targets designed to allow our species to "live in harmony with nature", with a 2050 deadline and 2030 checkpoints.
- What are this year's goals? -
The draft text under negotiation, the Framework Biodiversity Convention, provisionally sets 21 "targets" for 2030.
These include according protected status to 30 percent of lands and oceans, a measure supported by a broad coalition of nations, including France and Costa Rica.
Another goal is to halve the use of fertilisers so that less of the nitrogen-rich substance leaches into fresh and ocean waters.
The draft pact also calls for reducing pesticide use by at least two thirds, and for halting the discharge of plastic waste entirely.
Another measure would see subsidies for environmentally harmful industries reduced by "at least $500 billion per year".
Without money and enforcement, however, these measures risk becoming empty promises, experts warn.
- Are COP15 and COP26 linked? -
Yes and no. Negotiations under the two conventions unfold on separate tracks and do not intersect. But parties to both treaties are increasingly looking for overlapping solutions.
"We cannot solve climate change without biodiversity and we cannot solve biodiversity loss without climate change," Maruma Mrema said.
"They are two intertwined crises and they need to be addressed together."
Healthy ecosystems -- especially forest and oceans -- make better carbon sinks to absorb CO2 pollution.
These in turn are vital to keep global warming down to levels that are survivable for humanity and other species.
- What is China's role? -
Maruma Mrema says that China's status as host for the negotiations means the world's top carbon polluter and most populous nation will be "taking global leadership on the biodiversity agenda".
A statement known as the Kunming Declaration to be unveiled at the opening next week will set the tone for China's leadership, said Li Shuo, global policy advisor for Greenpeace China.
"Beijing has the task of rescuing a weak environmental convention from the verge of a reputational collapse," he said.
"It carries the mission to boost biodiversity protection to the same rank as climate change, a task that has proven beyond its reach so far."
© 2021 AFP
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