CNN

December 19, 2022
More than 190 countries have adopted a sweeping agreement to protect nature at the United Nations' biodiversity conference in Montreal.

The gavel went down in the early hours of Monday on an agreement which includes 23 targets aimed at halting the biodiversity crisis, including a pledge to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030. Only 17% of land and 10% of oceans are currently considered protected. Campaigners have hailed it as a "major milestone" for conserving complex, fragile ecosystems on which everyone depends.

But some countries were unhappy, criticizing the agreement for not going far enough. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has said it cannot support the agreement and has complained that it was rushed through without following proper processes.

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Associated Press

December 19, 2022
Los negociadores en una conferencia sobre biodiversidad de Naciones Unidas lograron el lunes de madrugada un acuerdo histórico que supondría el esfuerzo más significativo hasta ahora para proteger la tierra y los océanos y proporcionar financiamiento crucial para salvar la biodiversidad en el mundo en desarrollo.

El marco global se acordó el día antes del final previsto de la Conferencia de Biodiversidad de Naciones Unidas o COP15, en Montreal. China, que ostenta la presidencia de la cumbre, publicó un borrador al inicio de la jornada que dio el impulso necesario a unas conversaciones en ocasiones acaloradas.

La parte más significativa del acuerdo era un compromiso de proteger el 30% de la tierra y el agua consideradas como importantes para la biodiversidad para 2030. En este momento están protegidas el 17% de la tierra y el 10% de las zonas marinas.

“Nunca ha habido una conservación global de esta escala”, dijo a la prensa Brian O’Donnell, director del grupo conservacionista Campaign for Nature. “Esto nos da una oportunidad de evitar el colapso de la biodiversidad (...) Ahora estamos en la escala que los científicos creen que puede marcar una diferencia en la biodiversidad”.

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The New York Times

December 19, 2022
Roughly 190 countries early on Monday approved a sweeping United Nations agreement to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 and to take a slew of other measures against biodiversity loss, a mounting under-the-radar crisis that, if left unchecked, jeopardizes the planet’s food and water supplies as well as the existence of untold species around the world.

The agreement comes as biodiversity is declining worldwide at rates never seen before in human history. Researchers have projected that a million plants and animals are at risk of extinction, many within decades. While many scientists and activists had pushed for even stronger measures, the deal, which includes verification mechanisms that previous agreements had lacked, clearly signals increasing momentum around the issue.

“This is a huge moment for nature,” Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, a coalition of groups pushing for protections, said about the agreement. “This is a scale of conservation that we haven’t seen ever attempted before.”

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Edie

December 2, 2022
The meeting that is meant to be the final part of COP15 takes place in Montreal, Canada, from 5 December to 17 December, following a string of delays and postponements to efforts to create a new global treaty for biodiversity.

The summit was originally planned for Kunming, China, in 2020. It was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently split into two parts, with the first part successfully completed in Kunming in October 2021 and the second meeting in Kunming taking place this spring.

The second meeting was unsuccessful, with no final deal agreed upon. Interim talks in Nairobi were, therefore, added to the UN’s calendar for this summer, and a final meeting scheduled for Kunming in autumn. However, China saw a spike in Covid-19 cases in the first quarter of the year and places including Beijing and Shanghai were put into lockdown because of China’s ‘zero Covid’ approach. And so, more than two years after the summit was meant to have taken place, delegates from UN nations will meet this week to finally agree on a “Paris Agreement style” deal for nature.

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Nature

November 28, 2022
Human actions are rapidly transforming the planet, driving losses of nature at an unprecedented rate that negatively impacts societies and economies, from accelerating climate change to increasing zoonotic pandemic risk. Recognizing the accelerating severity of the environmental crisis, the global community committed to Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015. In 2022, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will adopt new targets for conserving, restoring and sustainably managing multiple dimensions of biodiversity, including nature’s contributions to people (NCP). Collectively, these three policy frameworks will shape the sustainable development agenda for the next decade. All three depend heavily on safeguarding natural assets, the living components of our lands and waters.

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Reuters

November 17, 2022
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend next month's U.N. biodiversity summit in Montreal, the country's environment minister said on Thursday - despite the event's official host China plan to send no invitations to world leaders.

At the nature summit, dubbed COP15, countries will try to agree a global deal to protect nature and wildlife, as species populations plummet and landscapes are degraded.

China, which holds the COP15 presidency, has not invited world leaders to the COP15 summit. It is taking place in Montreal on Dec. 7-19, after being postponed four times from its original 2020 date in China's city of Kunming.

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Reuters

November 16, 2022
With the annual U.N. climate summit in its final week, many of the world's environment ministers assembled in Egypt have begun setting their sights on another high-stakes meeting for nature taking place next month.

But for those talks on protecting nature to be a success, experts say, governments must bring global warming in check.

"Climate change is one of the big drivers of biodiversity loss," said David Cooper, the deputy chief of U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity.

The U.N. agency will convene its next global summit on biodiversity next month in Montreal, after host country China postponed the event four times through the global COVID-19 pandemic.

At the COP15 talks scheduled for Dec. 7-19, national delegations will hash out a new global deal to protect plummeting wildlife populations worldwide and halt the continuing degradation of landscapes.

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Cision

November 16, 2022
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) winds up, Canada is urging the international community to continue collaborating to address the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Today, during Biodiversity Day COP27, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, announced that Canada is investing up to $855,000 to ensure that not-for-profit environmental groups and Indigenous partners can fully participate in the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), taking place in Montréal from December 7–19, 2022. Over fifty groups will receive the funding, which is being coordinated by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, to support their participation in the lead up to the Nature COP and facilitate many important events that will be accessible to the general public.  

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UN Environment Programme

November 15, 2022
The natural world is the centre of life on Earth. Ecosystems – from forests, grasslands and peat bogs to oceans, rivers, savannahs and mountains – provide a vast range of services vital to the survival of humanity. They provide food and fresh water, protect us from disasters and disease, prop up the global economy, and crucially play a central role in tackling the climate crisis.

Tomorrow, discussions at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27), in Egypt will focus on the critical role of biodiversity to climate action. And this will be high on the agenda again at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal next month.

There, the world will be watching as leaders come together to agree on a new set of global goals for actions through 2040 to protect and restore nature. While COP15 focuses on nature and biodiversity loss, and COP27 on tackling the climate crisis, experts say these issues are deeply entwined, and neither can be solved on their own.

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The Guardian

November 11, 2022
The outcome of Cop27 will be crucial not just in terms of tackling the climate crisis but to help ensure a future for nature, the UN’s head of biodiversity has said, outlining plans for “a Paris moment for biodiversity” at Cop15 in Montreal in December.

“Clearly the world is crying out for change, watching as governments seek to heal our relationships with nature, with the climate,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the convention on biological diversity (CBD), at a media briefing on Thursday. “Scientists have told us in no uncertain terms … that climate change and biodiversity loss are intrinsically connected and that’s why we are looking at the [Cop15] framework as, basically, a Paris moment for biodiversity.”

In Paris in 2015, governments agreed legally binding targets to limit global temperature rises for the first time, pledging to hold global heating to well below 2C, with an aspiration not to breach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

At the Cop15 summit in December, organised by China but hosted in Canada, governments are expected to agree a UN agreement to halt the destruction of the natural world. Top officials have warned the nature agreement – the UN CBD – depends on strong climate commitments.

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Quartz

October 26, 2022
With little to no progress made in halting and reversing catastrophic biodiversity loss in the past few years, hundreds of companies have stepped up demands for regulations to increase transparency and accountability.

Businesses must be compelled to “assess and disclose their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity by 2030,” more than 330 firms and financial institutions from 56 countries said in an open letter published today (Oct. 26), organized by the Business for Nature coalition and addressed to world leaders. The signatories include Sweden’s furniture giants IKEA, India’s Tata Steel, and French international banking group BNP Paribas, among others.

As some large businesses demand regulations, other big companies have been linked to lobbying attempts to resist such laws. Currently, any biodiversity reportage is largely voluntary and scattered. The statement is urging governments “to transform the rules of the economic game and require business to act now” before COP15 in Montreal in December, where the new Global Biodiversity Framework will be formed.

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Canada’s National Observer

October 25, 2022
With COP15 in Montreal rapidly approaching, governments are gearing up to create targets on biodiversity for the next decade. The world has so far failed to meet any UN targets on halting the loss of nature, yet awareness of the challenge is greater than ever. Here we examine why this UN meeting matters and how it could herald meaningful action on nature loss.

Nature is in crisis and for the past three decades, governments have been meeting to ensure the survival of the species and ecosystems that underpin human civilization. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 saw the creation of three conventions: on climate change, desertification and biodiversity. The aim of the convention on biological diversity (CBD) is for countries to conserve the natural world, its sustainable use, and to share the benefits of its genetic resources.

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Reuters

October 25, 2022
There is a lot resting on the diminutive shoulders of Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The Tanzanian lawyer, chief executive of the Convention on Biological Diversity, will be leading efforts to strike an historic agreement to protect nature at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal in December.

As if that is not enough, she is also co-chair of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), with a goal of creating a framework for companies and investors to report on their nature-related risks: both the impact they have on nature, and their dependencies on nature to conduct their businesses.

Having only been appointed in 2021, she and her co-chair, former Refinitiv founder David Craig, are proceeding at warp speed, aiming to produce a workable version of the TNFD by September next year.

The timetable has been pushed to come just months after what is hoped to be a “Paris moment” for nature at COP15, a reference to the 2015 Paris climate agreement, with 196 countries signing off the Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF).

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Reuters

October 25, 2022
Over 330 businesses on Wednesday urged world leaders to force large companies to assess and disclose their impact on nature by 2030, ahead of the COP15 global talks on biodiversity in December.

Signatories of the COP15 Business Statement, which include GSK (GSK.L), H&M Group (HMb.ST) and Nestle (NESN.S) and which have combined annual revenues of more than $1.5 trillion, said the world needed to move past voluntary reporting rules.

"Improving the health of our planet requires bold, decisive action from policymakers and businesses. Some progress has been made, but it's not enough," Rebecca Marmot, chief sustainability officer at consumer goods company Unilever (ULVR.L), said.

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The Guardian

October 6, 2022
China has not invited world leaders to a major nature summit being held this year, raising concerns Beijing is downplaying the crucial Cop15 meeting in order not to embarrass Xi Jinping.

In December, governments will finalise a UN agreement to halt the destruction of the natural world at a summit organised by China but hosted in Canada. Because of Beijing’s zero-Covid policy and after several delays, Cop15 was moved to Montreal, the seat of the UN convention on biological diversity. It was meant to take place in Kunming, Yunnan province, in 2020.

The move has meant that China and Canada, who have a tense diplomatic relationship, must work together to organise the conference with the UN. In late September, the Chinese government sent out invitations to Cop15 in its role as president of the meeting, but addressed them only to ministers and NGO heads.

This raises the prospect of no world leaders attending the talks, where targets on biodiversity for the next decade will be created.

Xi, the Chinese president, is not expected to be at the summit and there are fears that organisers are trying to downplay the importance of Cop15 to avoid highlighting his lack of attendance. Several world leaders are understood to have privately expressed a desire to attend.

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