The conservation organization WWF praised the draft of a new agreement on biodiversity at the World Conference on Nature in Montreal, Canada. The text still has “major gaps”, but “measured against the difficult negotiations” of recent weeks, it is “a surprisingly promising interim result”, according to WWF Germany.
In the next decisive hours, the level of ambition must not fall under any circumstances. Negotiating states would have to use the little time left to turn this promising project into a “Montreal moment” for nature.
Greenpeace, on the other hand, criticized the draft as “weak” and a “farce”, a delegation of young participants initially criticized the document’s “lack of ambition”. Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) and EU ministers are being urged to use the final hours of the conference to turn things around, Greenpeace said.
After days of struggle, the World Conference on Nature officially enters its final day of negotiations. Yesterday, the president of the Chinese conference presented a compromise proposal for an agreement, which, however, still needs to be approved by all 196 signatory states of the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity.