Historic biodiversity agreement reached at UN conference

By CHRISTINE LAI

A historic deal has been negotiated at a UN biodiversity conference. The deal aims to stop the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and halt the possible extinction of thousands of animal and plant species.

The agreement boasts a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity before the end of the decade. Currently, only 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

Following over four years of negotiations and delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, almost 200 countries (excluding the United States and the Vatican), signed an agreement at the biodiversity Cop15 that committed to putting 200 billion USD (300,496 AUD) toward supporting biodiversity by 2030.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), countries (or parties) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) met for the 15th time since 1992 at the Conference of Parties (COP) to create a new global plan for protecting and restoring nature by 2030.

The Cop15 plenary began on Sunday evening and lasted for over seven hours before the agreement was struck between the countries at around 3:30am local time.

Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu spoke of the importance of this deal at the conference, telling delegates “We have in our hands a package which I think can guide us as we all work together to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and put biodiversity on the path to recovery for the benefit of all people in the world.”

“We can be truly proud”, Runqiu said.

The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature.

As per the UN’s Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity framework, there are calls for increasing the financial package for biodiversity related international financial resources from developed countries to developing countries, to at least US$ 20 billion per year by 2025, and to at least US$ 30 billion per year by 2030.

Push for food and fuel subsidies in UN document language

There has been some critique by advocates who have been pushing to have tougher language identifying subsidies for food and fuel over the next decade.

Andrew Deutz, director of global policy, institutions and conservation finance for The Nature Conservancy called the revised text a “mixed bag,”

According to the Associated Press, Deutz criticised elements of the finance and biodiversity areas, “It contains some strong signals on finance and biodiversity, but it fails to advance beyond the targets of 10 years ago in terms of addressing drivers of biodiversity loss in productive sectors like agriculture, fisheries, and infrastructure and thus still risks being fully transformational.”

In 2019, a UN report cautioned that a million plant and animal species could face extinction within decades. The main causes of that destruction are seen by experts as “changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species.”

Australia commits to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030

In September, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature (which the Morrison government refused to sign in 2020), to endorse a global endeavour to begin the transition to sustainable food production, reduce biodiversity loss and stop the extinction of species caused by humans.

Albanese spoke at a UN General Assembly in New York emphasising that Australia was aware of “the urgency of the environmental challenges facing our planet and we’re committed to being a leader in the global fight to solve them”.

“Working together we can better protect and conserve the world’s land, sea, waterways, and cultural heritage for future generations. Now is the time to act”, Albanese said.

Though the historic biodiversity agreement has been celebrated, the Montreal-Kunming agreement is not legally binding. Governments will still be tasked with proving targets have been met regarding national biodiversity plans, like other nationally agreed upon plans including the Paris climate agreement.