Andrew Deutz
Commentary
December 20, 2022
As Argentina grabbed the headlines for winning the FIFA World Cup, global leaders struck a historic deal to halt species extinction, writes Andrew Deutz of The Nature Conservancy.
Global leaders scored a historic win for nature, writes Andrew Deutz from environmental organization The Nature Conservancy
Image: Christina Muschi/REUTERS
Heading to another major United Nations environmental conference so soon after the climate equivalent had ended in Egypt felt rushed, even for someone who's been in the fray since the first climate summit in Berlin in 1995.
This time the stakes were even higher. Could the world deliver a 10-year global framework to halt and reverse alarming, human-induced biodiversity declines and give nature its own historic "Paris moment?"
Ahead of the UN biodiversity conference in Montreal, we at The Nature Conservancy compiled a scorecard of what we felt needed to be reflected in the Global Biodiversity Framework to create that moment.
The goals included a '30x30' pledge to protect 30% of the Earth and prevent mass extinction, plugging a $700 billion (€659 billion) annual gap in global biodiversity funding, reducing or repurposing $500 billion in harmful subsidies for activities like unsustainable farming practices and ensuring recognition of the rights and ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples.
Talks go into extra time, but score major goal for biodiversity
Heading to another major United Nations environmental conference so soon after the climate equivalent had ended in Egypt felt rushed, even for someone who's been in the fray since the first climate summit in Berlin in 1995.
This time the stakes were even higher. Could the world deliver a 10-year global framework to halt and reverse alarming, human-induced biodiversity declines and give nature its own historic "Paris moment?"
Ahead of the UN biodiversity conference in Montreal, we at The Nature Conservancy compiled a scorecard of what we felt needed to be reflected in the Global Biodiversity Framework to create that moment.
The goals included a '30x30' pledge to protect 30% of the Earth and prevent mass extinction, plugging a $700 billion (€659 billion) annual gap in global biodiversity funding, reducing or repurposing $500 billion in harmful subsidies for activities like unsustainable farming practices and ensuring recognition of the rights and ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples.
Talks go into extra time, but score major goal for biodiversity
Andrew Deutz of The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy
I'm delighted that after much hard work and hand-wringing by negotiators and civil society advocates, we reached a deal at 4 a.m. on Monday. The goals set before Montreal for a successful framework were nearly uniformly met. In an unusual dynamic, they improved over the last day of negotiations instead of being watered down.
As a conservation finance aficionado, who has devoted a lot of writing to funding problems, it was especially gratifying to see momentum build behind new biodiversity financing initiatives in countries as diverse as Canada, Mongolia and Gabon, together with the buzz we saw around debt-for-nature swaps at the climate conference in November.
But perhaps the most transformative of the measures agreed in Montreal will be a commitment by countries to ensure large companies and financial institutions measure and report on their nature-related "risks, dependencies and impacts." Businesses will have to reduce the harm they do to wildlife over time.
That's a powerful signal to the markets of the urgent need to recalibrate business models and investment strategies to fit a global economy evolving toward a nature-positive and carbon neutral future.
Messi takes the praise the biodiversity World Cup should have received
Perhaps if the Montreal deal hadn't followed so closely after the most exciting final in FIFA World Cup history, we'd be seeing levels of celebration closer to what followed in the wake of the Paris climate accord.
But now the real work starts. None of this progress will count for anything unless what was agreed makes it into national policy. The framework needs to become, like climate, a priority across government rather than something that ends up siloed in environment ministries.
The now defunct 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets had ambition but lacked a realistic finance plan and an accountability mechanism. This time we have all three. But we only have until the end of this decade to halt and reverse the dramatic loss of biodiversity — Earth's life support system. The race to save nature is every bit as urgent as the climate crisis, and the two crises are inextricably linked.
Speaking on behalf of all those who were in the room in the early hours of Monday — I think we can allow ourselves the hope that the new Global Biodiversity Framework proves a historic turning point in humanity's relationship with the natural world.
Andrew Deutz led the delegation for The Nature Conservancy at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal. TNC is a global environmental organization based in the United States.
Edited by: Jennifer Collins
I'm delighted that after much hard work and hand-wringing by negotiators and civil society advocates, we reached a deal at 4 a.m. on Monday. The goals set before Montreal for a successful framework were nearly uniformly met. In an unusual dynamic, they improved over the last day of negotiations instead of being watered down.
As a conservation finance aficionado, who has devoted a lot of writing to funding problems, it was especially gratifying to see momentum build behind new biodiversity financing initiatives in countries as diverse as Canada, Mongolia and Gabon, together with the buzz we saw around debt-for-nature swaps at the climate conference in November.
But perhaps the most transformative of the measures agreed in Montreal will be a commitment by countries to ensure large companies and financial institutions measure and report on their nature-related "risks, dependencies and impacts." Businesses will have to reduce the harm they do to wildlife over time.
That's a powerful signal to the markets of the urgent need to recalibrate business models and investment strategies to fit a global economy evolving toward a nature-positive and carbon neutral future.
Messi takes the praise the biodiversity World Cup should have received
Perhaps if the Montreal deal hadn't followed so closely after the most exciting final in FIFA World Cup history, we'd be seeing levels of celebration closer to what followed in the wake of the Paris climate accord.
But now the real work starts. None of this progress will count for anything unless what was agreed makes it into national policy. The framework needs to become, like climate, a priority across government rather than something that ends up siloed in environment ministries.
VIDEO Historic biodiversity deal reached at UN summit
01:59
The now defunct 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets had ambition but lacked a realistic finance plan and an accountability mechanism. This time we have all three. But we only have until the end of this decade to halt and reverse the dramatic loss of biodiversity — Earth's life support system. The race to save nature is every bit as urgent as the climate crisis, and the two crises are inextricably linked.
Speaking on behalf of all those who were in the room in the early hours of Monday — I think we can allow ourselves the hope that the new Global Biodiversity Framework proves a historic turning point in humanity's relationship with the natural world.
Andrew Deutz led the delegation for The Nature Conservancy at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal. TNC is a global environmental organization based in the United States.
Edited by: Jennifer Collins
Analysis-U.N. nature deal can help wildlife as long as countries deliver
A Saiga female cares for her two calves in an undated photograph in Kazakhstan
Thu, December 22, 2022
By Gloria Dickie
MONTREAL (Reuters) - A new conservation deal adopted this week at the U.N. summit in Montreal puts the world on a strong track to halt the rapid decline in nature - but only if wealthy nations deliver enough funding and all countries prioritize conservation.
Goals set out in the agreement, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, include halting species extinctions, conserving 30% of the world's land and sea by 2030, and mobilizing $200 billion per year for conservation.
Conservationists praised the deal's ambition, saying it amounted to a Paris Agreement for nature in setting out 23 specific targets against which countries can measure their progress.
"This is equivalent to the 1.5 degrees Celsius global goal for climate," said Marco Lambertini, director-general of World Wildlife Fund International.
Just setting the targets took four years of negotiations, culminating in this month's "COP15" summit in Montreal, during which countries weighed nature considerations against other pressures like economic development and industry competition.
At stake is nothing short of the survival of hundreds of thousands of species, with the U.N. saying there are now about 1 million threatened with extinction.
But delivering on the 23 targets will be much harder, conservation experts told Reuters, requiring strong political will and a willingness to sacrifice some of the world's most prime real estate to nature.
"What really matters is how these goals and targets are translated into national plans," said Nick Isaac, a macroecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
For developing countries, it will also depend on getting much-needed funding to incentivize conservation and pay for its costs.
"The key will be on developed countries delivering early on finance commitments," a negotiator from a Latin American country said.
POSSIBLE ROADBLOCKS
While the deal includes the ambitious target of protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030, the results will depend on which areas are chosen for conservation - and what exactly counts as protection.
Neither is strictly defined in the agreement, leaving it up to countries to decide how ambitious they will be.
Scientists and conservation groups have urged countries to protect species-rich land and sea areas. The trouble is, these are the same areas that most people prefer to live and work - with temperate weather and plenty of water and greenery available.
"The choice of which regions to protect … must be based on the best available data and methodology," said Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "Otherwise, there is a big risk that the cheapest areas are protected rather than those that matter most for biodiversity."
What countries consider as protected also matters, experts say.
During the talks, delegates discussed whether protected areas should be entirely off-limits to human settlement and development, or if some resource extraction should be allowed if managed sustainably. The deal left the question unsettled.
Some countries have already started carving out areas to protect.
China has made nearly a third of its land off-limits to development. Canada, one of the world's largest nations, is expanding protected land and marine areas in the Arctic.
Later this month, the U.S. Congress is expected to pass legislation to deliver $1.4 billion in annual funding to U.S. states for conservation.
SHOW US THE MONEY
Throughout the two-week COP15 summit, ministers repeatedly insisted that any conservation ambition must be matched by cash.
Funding from developed countries ultimately came in significantly below the $100 billion per year that was asked for. Instead, the deal included a promise to allocate $200 billion per year by 2030 from the public and private sectors - including $30 billion from wealthy nations.
Without that money, poorer nations warned they would be unable to guarantee protection for nature within their borders.
"Safeguarding the Amazon, the Congo Basin Forests, peatlands, mangroves and reefs globally will require some major increases in funding," said Brian O'Donnell, executive director of non-profit Campaign for Nature.
"Political leaders are just beginning to recognize how big a priority biodiversity should be on their agendas, and in their budgets," he said.
At COP15, the three biggest rainforest nations - Brazil, Congo and Indonesia - worked together in the final hours to reach consensus on the deal. The three just last month had announced a new partnership to cooperate on forest preservation.
"Such an alliance holds great potential," said Anders Haug Larsen of Rainforest Foundation Norway. "With the agreement giving priority to the most biodiversity-rich areas, implicitly rainforest protection will be at the core of its implementation."
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert and Isla Binnie; Editing by Katy Daigle and Deepa Babington)
A Saiga female cares for her two calves in an undated photograph in Kazakhstan
Thu, December 22, 2022
By Gloria Dickie
MONTREAL (Reuters) - A new conservation deal adopted this week at the U.N. summit in Montreal puts the world on a strong track to halt the rapid decline in nature - but only if wealthy nations deliver enough funding and all countries prioritize conservation.
Goals set out in the agreement, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, include halting species extinctions, conserving 30% of the world's land and sea by 2030, and mobilizing $200 billion per year for conservation.
Conservationists praised the deal's ambition, saying it amounted to a Paris Agreement for nature in setting out 23 specific targets against which countries can measure their progress.
"This is equivalent to the 1.5 degrees Celsius global goal for climate," said Marco Lambertini, director-general of World Wildlife Fund International.
Just setting the targets took four years of negotiations, culminating in this month's "COP15" summit in Montreal, during which countries weighed nature considerations against other pressures like economic development and industry competition.
At stake is nothing short of the survival of hundreds of thousands of species, with the U.N. saying there are now about 1 million threatened with extinction.
But delivering on the 23 targets will be much harder, conservation experts told Reuters, requiring strong political will and a willingness to sacrifice some of the world's most prime real estate to nature.
"What really matters is how these goals and targets are translated into national plans," said Nick Isaac, a macroecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
For developing countries, it will also depend on getting much-needed funding to incentivize conservation and pay for its costs.
"The key will be on developed countries delivering early on finance commitments," a negotiator from a Latin American country said.
POSSIBLE ROADBLOCKS
While the deal includes the ambitious target of protecting 30% of land and seas by 2030, the results will depend on which areas are chosen for conservation - and what exactly counts as protection.
Neither is strictly defined in the agreement, leaving it up to countries to decide how ambitious they will be.
Scientists and conservation groups have urged countries to protect species-rich land and sea areas. The trouble is, these are the same areas that most people prefer to live and work - with temperate weather and plenty of water and greenery available.
"The choice of which regions to protect … must be based on the best available data and methodology," said Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "Otherwise, there is a big risk that the cheapest areas are protected rather than those that matter most for biodiversity."
What countries consider as protected also matters, experts say.
During the talks, delegates discussed whether protected areas should be entirely off-limits to human settlement and development, or if some resource extraction should be allowed if managed sustainably. The deal left the question unsettled.
Some countries have already started carving out areas to protect.
China has made nearly a third of its land off-limits to development. Canada, one of the world's largest nations, is expanding protected land and marine areas in the Arctic.
Later this month, the U.S. Congress is expected to pass legislation to deliver $1.4 billion in annual funding to U.S. states for conservation.
SHOW US THE MONEY
Throughout the two-week COP15 summit, ministers repeatedly insisted that any conservation ambition must be matched by cash.
Funding from developed countries ultimately came in significantly below the $100 billion per year that was asked for. Instead, the deal included a promise to allocate $200 billion per year by 2030 from the public and private sectors - including $30 billion from wealthy nations.
Without that money, poorer nations warned they would be unable to guarantee protection for nature within their borders.
"Safeguarding the Amazon, the Congo Basin Forests, peatlands, mangroves and reefs globally will require some major increases in funding," said Brian O'Donnell, executive director of non-profit Campaign for Nature.
"Political leaders are just beginning to recognize how big a priority biodiversity should be on their agendas, and in their budgets," he said.
At COP15, the three biggest rainforest nations - Brazil, Congo and Indonesia - worked together in the final hours to reach consensus on the deal. The three just last month had announced a new partnership to cooperate on forest preservation.
"Such an alliance holds great potential," said Anders Haug Larsen of Rainforest Foundation Norway. "With the agreement giving priority to the most biodiversity-rich areas, implicitly rainforest protection will be at the core of its implementation."
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert and Isla Binnie; Editing by Katy Daigle and Deepa Babington)
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