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The international community faces the “moment of truth” regarding the protection of biodiversity, warned the executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, at the opening in China of COP15, a major UN conference on the preservation of nature.
Beijing (AFP)
The 15th conference of the UN CBD parties, called COP15, began this October 11 in Kunming (southwest China), in the presence of representatives of the Chinese Government, the CBD and some delegations, although it is held mainly in a virtual, a few weeks before the important COP26 climate conference.
The conference will have two stages: these virtual sessions from October 11 to 15 and two weeks of face-to-face meetings between April 25 and May 8 in Kunming, with delegations from the 196 CBD member countries, after two postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Although there have been successes, not enough progress has been made to stop the loss of plant and animal diversity on Earth currently underway,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema from China.
“We are facing the moment of truth. If we want to live in harmony with nature in 2050, we must act in this decade to stop and reverse the loss of diversity,” he added.
A text presented in July, which serves as the basis for discussions, includes four major goals for 2050, with ten milestones through 2030 and 21 targets.
The goals are included in the “30/30” plan, which seeks to grant protected status to 30% of lands and oceans by 2030, a measure supported by a broad coalition of countries, as well as the goal of limiting agricultural pollution and plastic.
China, seek to position itself as an environmental leader
China, which has been chairing COP15 since Monday and is one of the world’s biggest polluters, has sought in recent years to position itself as a planetary leader in environmental matters, after the United States withdrew from its climate commitments during the government of Donald Trump (2017 -2021).
Beijing is scheduled to present the so-called Kunming Declaration this week, which would mark the lines of its environmental leadership.
“China has set a red line when it comes to ecological protection and it is something that it will respect,” said Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng.
Around a million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction due to human invasion of their habitats, overexploitation, pollution, the spread of invasive species and climate change, according to the data handled at this conference.
The CBD has been ratified by 195 countries and the European Union (EU), although not by the United States, the world’s other major polluter. Its parts meet every two years.
At this time, divisions also persist over goals for urgent action in the coming decades.
The proposal to protect 30% of soils and seas by 2030, led by the Coalition of High Ambition for Nature and People, chaired by France and Costa Rica, does not have unanimous acceptance. Brazil and South Africa, for example, are opposed according to observers. While scientists ask to protect half of the planet.
Financing has also been a source of tension as developing countries urge rich nations to pay for their ecological transition. This topic will be present at one of the negotiating sessions in Geneva in 2022.
Discussions on biodiversity at COP15 are a preamble to COP26, which will begin in November in Glasgow, Scotland, and where world leaders will have to seek solutions to tackle the climate crisis.
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