Biodiversity loss: Lead negotiators at Cop15 push for strong outcome as ‘world is at precipice’

The world is at a precipice and must move to make peace with nature over coming days, UN Environment Programme director Inger Andersen said in a plea for a strong outcome to the Cop15 biodiversity summit in Montreal.

Urging negotiators from more than 190 countries “to move to the middle of the tent and find solutions”, she admitted big obstacles remained, including sign-off on a global biodiversity framework (GBF) and agreement on “resource mobilisation” so adequate funds were in place to ensure delivery of actions.

She was speaking at a briefing involving the leaders of Cop15 negotiations, including co-chairs Canada and China, and the executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Mrema. They all insisted progress was being made but that more needed to be done, as ministers arrive at the summit for a critical high-level meeting later this week.

“We all need to push harder this week,” said Canadian environment minister Steven Guilbeault. Having spoken with key stakeholders, he said there was optimism that “a nature-positive outcome” could be achieved. But this was in a scenario where “canaries in our global coal mines are dropping like flies”.

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Canada and many other countries had heard the voice of Africa and the Global South in calling for predictable and transparent funding to address biodiversity loss. Mobilising resources “is the ring that will control everything”, he added – a reference to Lord of the Rings.

As governments were not in a position to provide all the funds needed, he said the private sector, philanthropists, multilateral development banks, the IMF and World Bank would all have to play their part.

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Cop15 president Huang Runqiu of China confirmed more than 20 key decisions had been agreed, which was “incredible progress”, but he added he had a road map with a view to achieving breakthrough on outstanding issues in coming days.

Negotiations on the GBF were likely to encounter a bumpy road, Ms Mrema said, while agreement had still to be reached on protecting 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030. Negotiations on the issue intensified on Tuesday amid concerns that some countries may disagree with this level of protection, especially in marine areas.

Sue Lieberman, vice president of international policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society said the Cop presidency always had to be optimistic, but after of four years of discussions with the parties she believed “we are not halfway there on what is needed for conservation”.

She had no doubt there would be an outcome from Cop15, but there were indications a lot of governments were “sticking with business as usual”. In such circumstances, she was concerned that it would not be enough to address the biodiversity crisis.

Governments had to “negotiate up” and agree what was needed, Ms Lieberman added, so they could look back in 10 years and say a great outcome was achieved in Montreal.

Padraic Fogarty of the Irish Wildlife Trust, who is an observer at Cop15, has strongly backed moves at the UN summit to drastically reduce harmful public subsidies that damage nature. Under a potential deal, it is proposed that subsidies come down by $500 billion (€470 billion) a year.

There is also a move seeking to redirect massive subsidies for coal, oil, and natural gas which amounted $5.9 trillion in 2020, on the basis that much of these funds could be directed towards halting and reversing biodiversity loss.

“With hundreds of billions of public money going to farming, fossil fuels, fishing and forestry interests, much of this money is destructive to nature,” Mr Fogarty said.

The goal to cut subsidies “is very relevant to us in Ireland because we know that our CAP is going to spend nearly €10 billion on farming, €1.3 billion is set to be spent on a new forestry programme, and we also have hundreds of millions spent on fisheries”, he continued.

“Unfortunately, very little of this money is being directed towards transforming these sectors so they can be climate- and nature-friendly,” Mr Fogarty added.

In contrast, during a side event on business and biodiversity, the renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs emphasised the world’s economic dependency on biodiversity, with more than $47 trillion of the global economy depending directly or indirectly on nature. He called on Cop15 to set ambitious goals, to set a path to implement them and to “live up to multilateralism with strong regional co-operation”.