UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening of COP15, December 6 ANDREJ IVANOV / AFP
It’s time to end our war “on nature,” pounded United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday December 7 in Montreal during the opening of COP15 on biodiversity. With dramatic accents, the man who made protecting the planet and in particular the fight against climate change his warhorse castigated the “weapon of mass destruction” that humanity has become. “With our boundless appetite for uncontrolled and unequal economic growth, humanity has become a weapon of mass destruction,” he said.
He spoke in the wake of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose speech was interrupted by the tambourines of a dozen local tribal people. “Genocide of natives = ecocide”, “To save biodiversity, stop invading our land,” her banner proclaimed, waving to applause from part of the room for a few minutes before walking into silence for the exit were escorted.
The challenges of COP15 are significant: a million species are threatened with extinction, a third of the country is severely degraded and fertile soils are disappearing, while pollution and climate change are accelerating ocean degradation.
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More than 190 countries are meeting December 7-19 to try and seal a 10-year pact on nature to prevent a sixth mass extinction.
“Cacophony of Chaos”
“Today we are not in harmony with nature, on the contrary, we are playing a completely different melody,” a “cacophony of chaos played with instruments of destruction,” summed up the UN Secretary-General. “And we end up vicariously killing each other,” he added, with implications for jobs, hunger, disease and death.
Even if the scientific observation is little discussed, the points of friction between the members of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (195 states and the European Union, but excluding the United States) remain numerous. The outcome of the negotiations, which include around twenty goals to protect ecosystems by 2030, remains uncertain.
“For the Paris Agreement to be successful, biodiversity must also be successful. For the climate to thrive, nature needs to thrive, and that’s why we need to tackle it together,” CBD chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told Agence France-Presse (AFP) a few days ago.
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Among the twenty targets discussed, the flagship, dubbed “30 × 30,” aims to place at least 30% of the world’s land and seas under minimum legal protection by 2030. Compared to 17% and 10% respectively in the previous contract from 2010.
The question of funding, sticking point
Harmful subsidies for fisheries and agriculture, the fight against invasive species and the reduction of pesticides will also be discussed. But the question of financing these measures could again be a sticking point. Developing countries are demanding the establishment of a fund like that decided for the climate, without being granted it at the moment.
The lack of political leadership was also felt. No head of state or government other than Canada’s prime minister is expected in Montreal, while there were more than 110 in Egypt in November for COP27, the UN climate conference.
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