CNN —
More than 190 countries passed a comprehensive agreement to protect nature at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal.
The gavel fell in the early hours of Monday on an agreement that includes 23 targets aimed at halting the biodiversity crisis, including a pledge to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030. Currently only 17% of the land is protected and 10% of the oceans are considered protected. Activists have hailed it as a “major milestone” in preserving complex, fragile ecosystems on which all depend.
However, some countries were dissatisfied and criticized that the agreement did not go far enough. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has said it cannot support the deal, complaining that it was rushed through without following due process.
The road to this deal was long and strewn with delays. It was originally intended to be held in Kunming, China, but difficulties arising from the country’s zero-Covid policy made this impossible. The conference was relocated to Canada under joint Canadian and Chinese leadership. Expectations of the conference were high, with some calling it a “Paris moment for biodiversity” – a nod to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Nature is decaying at an alarming rate. In 2019, a landmark report by the UN Expert Panel on Nature found that up to 1 million terrestrial and marine species are threatened with extinction due to human actions. Some scientists say the world is entering the sixth mass extinction event, driven by human actions such as deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, and pollution of rivers and oceans.
After two weeks of negotiations — with tensions over global conservation funding proving a particular sticking point — the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was finally adopted around 3:30 a.m. local time Monday.
In addition to a pledge to protect nearly a third of land, freshwater and oceans by 2030, the framework also includes an agreement to reform $500 billion in subsidies harmful to nature and increase biodiversity funding for developing countries.
“The agreement represents an important milestone for the preservation of our natural world and biodiversity has never been higher on the political and business agenda,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.
Brian O’Donnell, Director of the Campaign for Nature, said: “The ’30×30′ target marks the greatest commitment to protecting land and sea in history. It will have major positive impacts on wildlife, tackling climate change and securing the services that nature provides to humans, including clean water and crop pollination.”
The framework also includes language protecting indigenous peoples, who play a paramount role in protecting the world’s biodiversity but have often been overlooked and in some cases even driven from the country in the name of conservation. It “has the potential to usher in a new paradigm for conservation, one in which the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are upheld and in which they are recognized for their leadership,” O’Donnell said.
While many have welcomed the deal, there are warnings that the proof of success will be how the deal is implemented.
“It can be undermined by slow implementation and a failure to mobilize the promised resources,” Lambertini said.
The agreement has also been criticized for not making quantifiable pledges to reduce production and consumption, which are the main drivers of biodiversity loss.
The agreement is not legally binding. Countries have agreed on a monitoring framework to assess progress, but “there are no binding commitments that make the whole mechanism seem weak,” Imma Oliveras Menor, senior researcher at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, told the Science Media Centre in London.
The history of biodiversity targets is checkered. The world has failed to fully meet a single one of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in Japan more than a decade ago. Some developing countries have expressed disappointment with the levels of funding promised in the final agreement.
Many remain cautiously optimistic.
“The Kunming-Montreal Accords passed today gives nature a fighting chance to recover in a world currently divided by geopolitics and inequality,” said Lin Li, senior director of global policy and advocacy at WWF International.
The next biodiversity summit is in 2024 and countries are expected to step up their financial commitments to halt biodiversity loss.