Animals and plants are dying out faster than in ten million years – but the fight to save biodiversity is slow.
A summit on the issue has been postponed three times but is now being moved from China to Canada.
Up to one million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction due to environmental degradation, the spread of invasive species and climate change. The extinction is faster than it has been for the last ten million years.
The hope is that it will change if biological diversity is protected through a global framework, in the same way that the Paris Agreement has given the world’s climate work a boost.
Sea and land
A central part of the proposal is a global goal to protect 30 percent of the world’s land, water and sea areas by 2030. In addition, measures will be taken to restore weakened ecosystems. But otherwise, the UN negotiations to produce a draft agreement have so far been rather sluggish, partly due to difficulties in agreeing on how the final plan should be financed.
A contentious issue is funding for poorer countries that are experiencing the most serious effects on biodiversity. Countries from Africa, South and Central America have demanded at least $ 100 billion a year – the same amount that rich countries have promised to help less developed countries adapt to climate change.
The existing draft is packed with parentheses on almost every line, which means that there is no agreement on the current wording.
The dire situation means that negotiators from almost 200 countries are gathering at an extraordinary meeting in Nairobi, Kenya this week to try to get ahead in the work. The idea is that the global agreement can be adopted at the UN conference COP15 – which, however, has been postponed three times due to the pandemic.
Concerns have been raised that the delays are hurting efforts to urgently seek to preserve biodiversity.
Meet this winter
But now the UN announces that the summit will be held in Montreal, Canada, December 5-17, instead of in Kunming, China, which was the original plan. The conference is expected to attract thousands of government officials, researchers, environmental activists and journalists.
“There is an urgent need for international partners to stop and reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity that is taking place around the world,” wrote Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault in a comment, continuing:
“With up to one million species currently at risk of extinction, the world can no longer afford to wait for global measures to protect nature.”
Criticism of China
There is no public explanation for why the meeting is being moved, but China still has strict pandemic rules for people traveling into the country.
Criticism has also been leveled at Beijing as host, partly due to the delays and lack of clear information but also partly due to concerns about the country’s restrictions on civil society, minority groups and the media.
However, China will retain the role of chair of COP15.
Facts
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is a collective term for all the variation that exists between and within species and habitats on earth.
Biodiversity is a foundation on which the whole of nature rests because species are closely linked to each other. It is also thanks to biodiversity that a wide range of vital functions are created in nature, such as pollination and purification of air and water.
The link between biodiversity and nature’s ability to deliver ecosystem services has received increased attention during the 2000s. Researchers agree that the depletion of biodiversity is alarming.
A convention on biological diversity was signed in connection with the Rio Conference in 1992 by Sweden and most other countries.
Source: Nationalencyklopedin, Naturskyddsföreningen
Read more