Negotiators at a United Nations conference on biodiversity succeeded early Monday a historic agreement which would be the most significant effort to date protect the earth and oceans and provide critical funding to save biodiversity in the developing world.
The global framework was agreed the day before the scheduled end of the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity, or COP15, in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency of the summitposted a draft earlier in the day that gave much-needed momentum to some sometimes heated conversations.
The most significant part of the agreement is the commitment to protect the 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030. Right now 17% of the land and 10% of the marine areas are protected.
“There has never been global conservation on this scale,” Brian O’Donnell, director of conservation group Campaign for Nature, told reporters. it gives the possibility to avoid the collapse of biodiversity (…) We are now at the scale that scientists believe can make a difference in biodiversity”.
We need 200 billion dollars
The text also asks to collect 200,000 million dollars from multiple sources by 2030 in funds for biodiversity and work to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide an additional $500 billion for nature.
As part of the financing item, the agreement provides for an increase of at least 20,000 million dollars annually by 2025 money going to poor countries, about double the current amount. That number would rise to $30 billion annually by 2030.
Some activists want tougher language on the subsidies that have made fuel and food cheaper in many parts of the world. The document asks only to identify by 2025 the subsidies that can be reformed or withdrawn and work to reduce them by 2030.
“The new text is a mixed bag,” said Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation funding at The Nature Conservancy.
“It contains some strong hints of finance and biodiversity, but fails to go beyond the goals of 10 years ago in terms of addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss in productive sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and infrastructure and therefore still risks being truly transformative”.
By Michael Casey, Associated Press
Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.