A couple of weeks ago, the government of the president Gustavo Petro and John Hopkins University co-sponsored a big event in Washington to ‘socialize’ in the US capital next COP16 on biodiversity that starts this month in Cali.
According to the criteria of
The event, in addition to academics and experts, was attended by the Foreign Minister of Colombia, Luis Gilberto Murilloand John PodestaPresident Joe Biden’s special envoy for Climate, clear proof of the support that this Democratic administration offers to the event and on an issue where both governments seem to be on the same page.
Except for one small problem: the United States will not officially attend because it is not a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (or CBD), the international treaty adopted at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit that established the COP ( or Conference of the Parties) as its governing body.
In fact, the United States is the only country in the world that has not ratified the Convention, a thorn that remains entrenched in the side of the CBD since its founding and has enormous impact as it is the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Something that becomes more visible every two years when the planet meets to align policies on this front.
Conservative nationalists in the United States (including the Senate) have long distrusted international agreements. They see them as efforts by the United Nations and foreign governments to impose restrictions on the constitutional independence of the United States, interfere with the activity of the American private sector and create redistributionist schemes.
The explanation for this notable absence has a lot of politics and some commercial interests.
Since the issue began to be discussed in the 1980s, Republicans and certain sectors of the biotechnology industry have opposed the treaty, claiming that it would infringe on US sovereignty, jeopardize economic interests and impose a burden on them. financial.
Curiously, says William Snape, environmental lawyer and assistant dean of American University and senior advisor to the Center for Biological Diversity, the United States was one of the main promoters of the CBD in the final stretch of its approval, as it understood that an agreement was necessary. that addressed a concern that existed then and that persists today.
But when it was brought up for consideration at the Rio conference, then-President George H. Bush was facing a tough re-election campaign against Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas.
A significant segment of his party (the Republicans) opposed some of the basic concepts of the CBD. Mainly, the one that talks about sharing biodiversity and genetic resources in a “fair” way.
Biotechnology companies, which lobbied against it, feared they would be forced to share their intellectual property rights. Likewise, that the United States would end up being responsible for helping poorer nations protect their natural resources and that the agreement would establish more environmental regulations.
Although dozens of nations signed, including the United Kingdom, China and Canada, the White House abstained.
But in November of that year, Clinton won the elections and decided to sign the treaty, which was defended by environmentalists and Democrats in the country. Its ratification in the Senate, the congressional body in charge of giving approval for this type of international agreement, ended up being more complicated.
Although a bipartisan committee of the Foreign Relations Committee gave its approval after Clinton included guarantees that the agreement did not compromise intellectual property rights, a group of Republican legislators crossed paths and prevented the agreement from being approved in the plenary session. of the upper house, where 67 votes or two thirds were necessary. Since then, no other US president – not even Democrats Barack Obama or Joe Biden – has resubmitted the agreement for ratification in Congress.
No votes
Although the issue of biodiversity protection is one of the few where there is some consensus on USAno one believes that the 67 votes required by the Convention to advance exist.
donald trumpIn fact, he was a staunch opponent of the ratification of this type of treaty during his first term, and Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation and establishing a roadmap for a possible second, calls for blocking the ratification of the CBD.
“Conservative nationalists in the United States (including the Senate) have long distrusted international agreements. They see them as efforts by the United Nations and foreign governments to impose restrictions on the constitutional independence of the United States, interfere with the activity of the American private sector and create redistributionist schemes,” writes Stewart Patrick, director of International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council of Foreign Relations.
Biden, in fact, has attempted to roll back many of the anti-environment policies that were put in place under Trump. Among them, reintegrating the country into the agreement Paris Climate Change of 2016, which the Republican knocked down upon his arrival at the White House.
Despite this, it has not taken steps in favor of the CBD and other international treaties, knowing that its legislative ratification is costly in political terms and has little future.
The unfortunate thing, Patrick says, is that the US would lose nothing by joining the Convention, as its domestic standards and environmental policies already fall short of what the CBD requires.
“The United States already complies with the substantive terms of the treaty: it has a developed system of protected natural areas and has policies to reduce biodiversity loss in sensitive areas,” says Patrick. Apparently the problem, as was the case 22 years ago, is the political climate, which remains just as toxic as it was then.
SERGIO GÓMEZ MASERI
TIME CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
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