December 18, 2022, 20:03 PM
December 18, 2022, 20:03 PM
Countries meeting at the UN Biodiversity conference in Montreal on Sunday were close to closing a deal to protect 30% of the planet and commit $30 billion in aid each year in the next decade for developing nations to save their ecosystems.
The difficult negotiations to seal a “peace pact for nature” reached a decisive moment when China, which chairs the summit, presented a compromise text that did not conform to the countries of the south on the issue of financing.
The countries must reach a consensus on Monday on what will be the road map for the next decade to stop the accelerated loss of species and the degradation of ecosystems.
The preliminary project proposes to allocate “at least 30,000 million dollars” in international aid annually by 2030.
With Brazil in the leaddeveloping countries claim that the northern nationswhich they accuse of have become rich at the cost of their resources, commit $100 billion a year.
This represents ten times the current aid for biodiversity.
The Colombian environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said she was “optimistic” although she noted that between the two figures “probably” an intermediate agreement will have to be reached.
And he proposed to look for alternative routes such as incorporate the debt swap for environmental servicesa proposal from several Latin American countries but which is not in the preliminary text.
“It is a source of financing that also it would be climate justice and environmental,” he said.
Braulio Dias, the chief negotiator of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s transition team, called for a “better resource mobilization agreement” towards developing countries, a call seconded by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which described the proposal as “unacceptable.” .
The European commissioner for the environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, was more cautious, estimating that the funding figures being discussed could make consensus difficult.
But “if we have other countries committing to meet those goals, like China, I think it can be realistic,” he told reporters, urging Arab nations to do their part.
The objective of protecting 30% of the land and seas by 2030, announced as a key point of these negotiations, was included in the Chinese proposal.
“The draft of the final document of the Chinese presidency is courageous,” said German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke. “By protecting nature, we protect ourselves.”
Experts have ensured that the so-called “30×30” objective is the equivalent for nature of the historical goal of 1.5 °C of global warming of the Paris Agreement.
The previous agreement, signed in Japan in 2010, set those numbers at 17% and 10%, respectively.
The project mentions the protection of indigenous peoples, guardians of 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity, a demand widely demanded by representatives of these communities at the summit.
For Brian O’Donnell, director of the NGO Campaign for Nature, 30% target is “highest engagement ever with the conservation of the oceans and the earth”.
“Conservation on this scale gives nature a chance. If approved, the outlook for leopards, butterflies, sea turtles, forests and populations will improve markedly,” he added.
The NGO Avaaz considered, however, that 30% “is not ambitious enough.”
That figure has already been met “in fact” due to the “unrecognized” work of indigenous peoples and local communities, the NGO stressed in a statement, in which it called for a 50% stake.
Scientists warn that time is pressing: 75% of ecosystems are altered by human activity and more than a million species are in danger of extinction.
This framework should succeed the ten-year plan signed in Japan in 2010, which failed to achieve almost none of its objectives, a failure attributed to the lack of monitoring mechanisms, something that the draft agreement provides for.
Details of the twenty objectives are still under debate, and it is likely that the negotiations will extend beyond the deadline of this Monday, when a final document should be presented.
