In 2022, the world reached the most ambitious agreement ever to stop the destruction of nature by the end of the decade.
Two years later, countries are already behind in meeting their targets.
As around 200 nations begin a two-week United Nations biodiversity summit this Monday, COP16 in Cali, Colombia, they face pressure to demonstrate their support for the goals set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Agreement.
A major concern for countries and companies is how to finance conservation, and the COP16 negotiations aim to develop new initiatives that can generate revenue for nature.
“We have a problem here,” said Gavin Edwards, director of the nonprofit Nature Positive.
“COP16 is an opportunity to recharge our batteries and remind everyone of the commitments they made two years ago and start correcting course if we want to get closer to achieving our 2030 goals,” Edwards said.
The rate of destruction of nature through activities such as logging or overfishing has not slowed, while governments are missing deadlines for their biodiversity action plans and conservation funding is billions of dollars short of meeting the biodiversity target. 2025.
The summit in Colombia, which marks the 16th meeting of nations that signed the original 1992 Biodiversity Convention, is expected to be the largest biodiversity summit to date, with around 23,000 delegates registered to attend, as well as a large exhibition area open to visitors. the public.
It remains to be seen whether participation and pressure can lead countries to take bolder conservation actions.
The clearest sign of lagging efforts is the fact that most countries have not yet submitted national conservation plans, known officially as National Biodiversity Action Plans and Strategies (NBSAP), although they have agreed to do so by start of COP16.
As of Friday, 31 of 195 countries had submitted a plan to the United Nations Biodiversity Secretariat.
Wealthier nations have been quicker to present their plans, including many European countries, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and Canada.
The United States participates in the negotiations, but has never ratified the Convention on Biodiversity and therefore is not required to present a plan.
As of Friday, 73 other countries had chosen to submit only a less ambitious proposal setting out their national goals, without details on how they would be achieved.
With so few plans presented, experts will likely have difficulty assessing progress in reaching the agreement’s “30 x 30” goal of conserving 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.
Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, who is also president of COP16, said that while the summit must evaluate the plans presented so far, it must also try to resolve why so many others are being delayed.
“It may be that the funds are not sufficient, for example, to produce the plans,” Muhamad told Reuters. Even countries with newly elected governments could still catch up, he said.
Poorer countries have had difficulty finding the funding and expertise needed to develop national biodiversity plans, said Bernadette Fischler Hooper, advocacy manager at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Source: Terra
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