Montreal, Canada – Scientists, activists and delegates from nearly 200 countries are gathering in Canada this week to tackle one of the world’s most pressing issues: biodiversity loss and what can be done to reverse it.
For many years, experts have been warning about how climate change and other factors are causing the decline of animals, plants, plants and other species, as well as the destruction of various ecosystems.
Based on this, the United Nations conference on biodiversity, known as COP15, will begin on Wednesday in Montreal with the aim of establishing a plan to combat the destruction of the world’s natural resources in the next decade and beyond.
“This is a remarkable time for biodiversity,” said Andrew Gonzalez, a professor in the biology department at McGill University in Montreal and the founding director of the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science.
Here, Al Jazeera explains everything you need to know:
What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity – short for biodiversity – refers to the wide variety of life on earth, from animals, plants, and microbes to ecosystems, such as rainforests and coral reefs.
Why is biodiversity important?
Biodiversity affects everything from global health and food security to the economy and the global fight against climate change, the United Nations explains.
More than half of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) – about $44 trillion – is also “slightly or heavily dependent” on natural resources and therefore vulnerable to loss, the World Economic Forum said in a 2020 report (PDF).
“Climate change is not the only horseman of the environmental crisis. Environmental degradation is also increasing. And the two are connected. You can’t solve one without addressing the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund-US.
How diverse is the world?
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reported that one-third of the world’s land surface and 66 percent of its oceans have been significantly altered. It warned that one million species could become extinct, including “many more within decades” if nothing is done.
“The scale of environmental change over the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history,” the report said, pointing to five major causes: land and sea change, overexploitation of species, climate change, pollution, and attack. of exotic species.
“The way we’re destroying our land, the way we’re destroying habitat, often for reasons related to supporting agriculture and growing food or extracting resources, is now at an unsustainable rate – an incredibly unsustainable rate,” Gonzalez told Al Jazeera. .
“And it’s creating what many of us thought was going away,” he said.
Habitat loss affects biodiversity and climate change. In addition to wildlife, the environment stores billions of tons of carbon. Keeping carbon sequestered and protecting the environment is our mission #COP15.
through @WWFCA_SciComm pic.twitter.com/dQkZ3k4uG9
– UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) December 5, 2022
Who is COP15 and who is participating?
The December 7-19 meeting will bring together delegates from 196 countries that have ratified the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (PDF), which began in 1992. Scientists, non-governmental organizations, and other experts will also be present.
The purpose of the meeting – which was moved to Montreal from Kunming, China, due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 but is overseen by China – is to implement a plan to help guide countries on how to protect different natural resources. Although China has not invited world leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to attend the opening ceremony on Tuesday afternoon.
“We can no longer continue with the ‘business as usual’ mentality,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, secretary general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, urging countries to establish a system that is “responsible, credible and feasible”.
What will this new framework include?
The draft (PDF) of the new biodiversity policy released last year included 21 goals to be achieved by 2030. They include reducing the use of pesticides, increasing investment by $200bn a year, and protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and seas. all over the world – 30×30 request – through “systems of protected areas and other effective methods of land management”.
But experts pointed out that the text of the agreement, called the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, included many changes – indicated by large brackets – that the parties did not agree on, which raised concerns.
“We need words with teeth – and fewer brackets,” Sandra Diaz, a professor and member of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, recently wrote in Nature.
“Many things we have learned in the 30 years since the beginning of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit show how human activities affect the environment: strong, precise, ambitious texts do not only guarantee successful implementation, but weak, unclear, toothless words almost guarantee failure.”
What are the main problems?
Getting a “solid and ambitious document together” will be the conference’s biggest task, said McGill University’s Gonzalez, along with securing funding and implementing the agreed-upon goals.
Of the 20 goals established in the 10-year international plan in 2010, the so-called Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Convention on Biological Diversity stated that none of them had been successfully achieved (PDF) by 2020.
“It’s not about traditional installations, which only put the environment behind the fence,” Gonzalez explained, referring to the installation problem in the next contract. “But it is also about healthy people, with a healthy environment.
“We are seeing the recognition of the rights of Indians and local people, women, young people, thinking about the long-term consequences for everyone, not just this generation.”
What other things should be considered?
At the end of last month, Greenpeace urged rich countries to take a fair share of money and help countries in the Global South to protect areas at risk of destruction; similar arguments about which countries should pay which led to the recent COP27 negotiations in Egypt.
The environmental rights group also called on governments to ensure that the next policy respects the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples, who live in the areas with the most natural resources left in the world, according to the UN and other experts.
Other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, also urged to warn against any framework that would designate 30 percent of the world as “protected areas” – the 30 × 30 concept. human rights, including murder, rape and torture in Africa and Asia,” he said (PDF) in November.
“Considering that 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity is found on Indigenous lands, the evidence is clear that the best way to protect nature is to protect the rights of the people who live and depend on it.”
Can an ‘aspirational’ agreement be reached?
Despite the questions and difficulties, Gonzalez said he was “hopeful” that the parties would be able to get to the same page and reach their “needs”. “There is a huge increase in biodiversity right now,” he said, pointing to international officials, as well as non-governmental organizations, working on the issue.
The concentration of public interest in diversity can also help influence decision makers. For example, officials involved in securing the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change recently emphasized the need to reach a “change” agreement at COP15.
“Leaders must find a global agreement on biodiversity that is as ambitious, science-based and comprehensive as the Paris agreement is on climate change,” they wrote in an open letter last month (PDF).
“Like the Paris Agreement, it must encourage countries to take a pledge and renew their actions to match the growth of the crisis. It must be inclusive, based on rights and jobs for all. And it must save, across the region, urgent action – our future depends on it.”
