More than 190 countries meet from December 7 to 19 in Montreal for the COP15 on biodiversity. The outcome of the negotiations, which relate to around twenty objectives intended to safeguard ecosystems by 2030, is uncertain.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Humanity has become a “massive extinction weapon” and it is time to stop our “war to nature,” the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said on Tuesday December 7, during the Opening of the COP15 on the biodiversity held in Montreal.
Since taking office in 2017, Antonio Guterres, former Portuguese Prime Minister, has made climate change his workhorse. His inflamed denunciations during the solemn opening of Reunion COP15 show that the fate of threatened plants and natural environment – an interconnected crisis – is close to heart.
He was expressed in the wake of the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, whose intervention was interrupted by the drums of a dozen representatives of a local Aboriginal people. “Aboriginal genocide = ecocide”, “to save biodiversity, stop invading our land,” proclaimed their banner, brandished for a few minutes to the applause of part of the room, before they are escorted, in the calm, towards the exit.
The challenges that COP15 must take up are considerable: one million species are threatened with extinction, a third of the land is seriously degraded and fertile soils disappear, while pollution and climate change accelerate the degradation of the oceans .
More than 190 countries meet from December 7 to 19 to try to seal a ten -year nature pact and thus avoid a sixth mass extinction.
“Cacophony of chaos”
“Today we are not in harmony with nature, on the contrary we play a very different melody”, a “cacophony of chaos played with instruments of destruction”, summed up the secretary general of the United Nations. “And ultimately, we commit suicide by proxy,” he added, with employment, hunger, illness and death.
If the scientific observation is little discussed, the points of friction remain numerous between the members of the Convention for Biological Diversity (CDB) of the UN (195 States and the European Union, but without the United States) . The outcome of negotiations, relating to around twenty objectives intended to safeguard ecosystems by 2030, remains uncertain.
“For the Paris Agreement to succeed, biodiversity must also succeed. For the climate to succeed, nature must succeed, and that is why we must treat them together,” Elizabeth Maruma told AFP Mrema, the cdb head of the CDB a few days ago.
Among the twenty objectives in discussions, the flagship ambition, nicknamed 30×30, aims to place at least 30 % of the land and seas of the globe under minimum legal protection by 2030. Against 17 % and 10 respectively and 10 % in the previous agreement of 2010.
The question of financing, blocking point
It will also be a question of harmful subsidies to fishing and agriculture, to fight against invasive species and the reduction of pesticides. But the question of financing these measures could once again be a blocking point. Developing countries are asking for the creation of a fund, such as the one decided for the climate, without it being granted to them.
The lack of political leadership could also be felt. Apart from the Canadian Prime Minister, no head of state or government is expected in Montreal, when they were more than 110 in Egypt in November for COP27, UN climate conference.