The lesser known, but no less important, biodiversity-based COP15 concludes today with a historic deal to keep 30% of the earth natural by 2030.
Called “30 by 30”, the end-of-decade target to conserve a third of land, fresh water and oceans (a step up from the 17% land and 10% marine areas currently protected) follows two weeks of negotiations between nearly 200 nations at the UN summit in Montreal.
On the agreed to-do list (formally titled the Kunming-Montreal agreement) are 23 targets, including a 30% restoration pledge to be led by Indigenous peoples, a plan to halt human-induced extinction of threatened species, and the reduction of pollution, habitat destruction and climate change. It also includes plans to stamp out invasive species, as demonstrated by the show trial of the cockroach UN delegate.
The agreement replaces the 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets, which achieved little. No goals were met, and no single country ticked off all its targets.
Going forward, countries are expected to set aside $298 billion in public and private money for biodiversity. There is also an expectation that harmful subsidies (the big bucks that propel biodiversity loss) will drop by at least $745 billion a year.
From 2025, developed nations will contribute a base level of $30 billion a year to poorer nations (double the dollar value of what they give now). That’s set to rise to $45 billion a year come 2030.
The closing deal took seven hours to resolve (although some delegates from African nations have claimed no such resolution was met), with the finer details of funding causing tensions between developed and developing nations.
Negotiators from Cameroon, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo argued the deal was finalised by force, not consensus, as China’s environment minister and COP15 president Huang Runqiu simply declared it a done deal.
Officials from host nation Canada said that, abrupt as it may be, the agreement “fit with the UN definition of adoption”.
Conspicuously absent from deliberations were the United States (and the Vatican). Although present at the summit with a formal delegation, the Biden administration was there to watch only. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity has been alive and well for 30 years. The US has never managed to muster a two-thirds majority in the Senate to ratify itself as a party to the agreement.
All this as the world gears up for its sixth mass extinction.
thanks Julia
a priority should be identifying contiguous vegetation and natural floodplain corridors to stop further fragmentation of remnant ecosystems
michael – gwydir (NSW) floodplain
You have to wonder how much of that 30% will be actual endangered environments, as opposed to some meaningless chunk of desert that no one wants to live on, and which has no resources on it or in it.
that is the point i was trying to make – priority should be identifying contiguous vegetation and natural floodplain corridors to stop further fragmentation of remnant ecosystems – so much has been clear felled and aser levelled for irrigation momoculture – loss of creeks, pools and billabongs
michael – gwydir (NSW) floodplain
The trajectory on which we as a species, Homo sapiens, are headed, represents nothing less than a truly monumental tragedy in the making.
Yet in the face of all this, not only were the United States and the Vatican conspicuously absent from the COP15 Biodiversity Conference deliberations on this impending tragedy, as Julia Bergin reminds us; but also conspicuously absent from this or any other conference on the future of our planet, was (as far as I am aware) any mention, let alone, serious discussion of the role that overpopulation of playing in this unfolding disaster.
I invite anyone who may think that I am exaggerating or worrying unnecessarily about the issue of global overpopulation to peruse the graph entitled “The size of the world population over the last 12,000 years” and then ask yourself the question, “Is this likely to end well?” This graph is available at (you will need to scroll down a little):
https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth
For those who do examine this graph, try to find any blips or downward trends for the 20th century when we had such tragic events as genocides, wars, and a pandemic that led to hundreds of millions of lives being lost prematurely (not to mention extremely violently).
If we are to take a serious and long-term approach to the putative forthcoming catastrophe, we need to look at ways of slowing the rate of growth of the human population. This means trying to talk sense to the leaders of major religions such as the Pope, the leaders of Islam, and Orthodox Judaism. Cultural practices in places like some African countries where the ‘manliness’ of males is measured by how many children they fathers, also need to be challenged.
When we talk of a “mass extinction” we must assume that much, if not all, of the great progress that humans have made over the millennia will be lost. Homo sapiens are the only known species in the known universe that has produced an understanding of mathematics, (including geometry, algebra, and calculus), physics (including classical mechanics, special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics), biochemistry, and chemistry are also other sciences that most likely would be lost in an extinction event. Then there are fields in the arts such as music, painting and architecture. All of these great human accomplishments are now at risk because humans are irretrievably divided amongst themselves. To satisfactorily meet the existential challenges that we now face, a united and collective approach is vital.
I would submit that the greatest impediments which prevent humans from coming together to meet this gargantuan challenge include capitalism, (which catalyzes, enables and rewards greed and exploitation), nationalism (together with its junior cousin – tribalism) and religion (what more needs to be said about that?)
There is an enormous challenge ahead of us. I try not to be optimistic or pessimistic but rather realistic and with that mindset I am extremely worried about the future.
Realistically, I cannot see us avoiding the fate we are fast bringing upon ourselves.
This 30 by 30 might be a decent deal, but I’d bet that in 8yrs time, it’ll be written about in the same manner as the 2010 Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
“…achieved little. No goals were met, and no single country ticked off all its targets.”
Another joke resolution. Maybe a “mass extinction” is what the earth needs.
On the current political trajectories, that’s what we’re gonna get.
Its a worry that there appears little attention to food and agriculture as a driver of species extinction.
Iida Ruishalme, a biologist and science communicator, in a conference presentation held in Warsaw in October 2022: A New Hope: The RePlanet Sessions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1N9igG5fz8) explained the importance of good agriculture and land use in combatting climate change and stopping biodiversity loss. If we want to survive the climate emergency, we need to be aware that our food system – dominated by meat, fish and dairy – must change. As RePlanet says, we need to “rethink food” production, and to “reboot food” (https://www.replanet.ngo/). She shows that agricultural land clearing driven largely by grazing of cattle threatens with extinction a massive number of species, 4-times the number threatened by other factors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1N9igG5fz8).