Republic of the Philippines

January 13, 2021
The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has expressed openness to the outcomes of the One Planet Summit, hosted by the French government, United Nations, and World Bank, on 11 January 2021.

“We welcome fresh commitments from world leaders, which the ACB views with much optimism and enthusiasm. These pledges pivot initiatives to conserve and restore ecosystems in the ASEAN region and across the globe, especially now that we are ushering in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,” ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim said.

At the summit, governments, such as the United Kingdom (UK) and France, announced earmarking funds for nature-based solutions.  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK will commit at least GBP 3 billion (USD 4 billion) to climate change solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity over five years. The summit also saw USD 10 billion earmarked for the Great Green Wall, a project to restore degraded lands in the Sahel along an 8,000-kilometre band from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, along with new financial commitments from Norway and Germany.

Some 50 nations expressed support for the plan to carve out 30 per cent of global lands and oceans for protection by 2030 (30x30 goals).

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Xinhua

January 12, 2021
World leaders on Monday reiterated the urgent need for concerted global action to safeguard biodiversity and for a global governance framework on climate issues in the post-pandemic era.

"We have been poisoning air, land and water -- and filling oceans with plastics," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, while addressing world leaders at the One Planet Summit for biodiversity.

Organized by the French government in partnership with the UN and the World Bank, the One Planet Summit brought together world leaders to commit action to protect and restore biodiversity. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the event was largely virtual.

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Independent

January 12, 2021
A group of 50 countries has pledged to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030 in a bid to tackle the world’s worsening biodiversity crisis.

The commitment to restoring nature was announced on Monday at the One Planet Summit, a key meeting for world leaders hosted by France, the World Bank and the UN.

The coalition of countries, led by the UK, Costa Rica and France, together account for around 28 per cent of the world’s land animals and a quarter of the land’s carbon reserves.

The group aims to galvanise greater action on stemming biodiversity loss ahead of a key UN biodiversity summit, which is to be held in Kunming, China later this year in May.  

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PEW

January 12, 2021
In 2021, the parties to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to adopt a new 10-year global biodiversity framework with goals and targets for ocean protection.

In support of a growing call to protect and conserve 30% of the ocean by 2030, on Jan. 12 an informal coalition of nongovernmental and other civil society organizations shared with representatives from CBD a statement calling for a robust global biodiversity framework that will safeguard our ocean ecosystems for the long-term benefit of communities, fishers, biodiversity, and Earth’s climate.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

January 11, 2021

A global coalition to protect at least 30% of the planet's land and ocean by 2030 has swelled its ranks to about 50 countries, as governments said at a summit hosted by France Monday that biodiversity loss and climate change should be tackled jointly.

First launched in 2020, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People added more than 20 nations, including Japan, Germany, Kenya, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Ecuador.

Its member countries combined are home to an estimated 30% of animal and plant species on land and a quarter of carbon stores in biomass and soil, the coalition said.

Their boundaries also contain 28% of ocean areas that are most important to preserve global marine biodiversity, and more than a third of carbon stocks in the Earth's seas.

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La Nación

January 11, 2021
Este lunes 11 de enero de 2021 será el lanzamiento de la Coalición de Alta Ambición para la Naturaleza y las Personas (HAC, por sus siglas en inglés), iniciativa que busca proteger, como mínimo, 30% de las superficies terrestre y marina del planeta de aquí al 2030.

Se trata de una iniciativa enfocada en el secuestro de carbono, para salvar especies amenazadas, la cual es liderada por Costa Rica y Francia, con el Reino Unido como aliado en temas marítimos.

El proyecto será presentado en el marco de la cuarta edición de la cumbre One Planet Summit, organizada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), Francia y el Banco Mundial.

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France 24

January 11, 2021
There is a growing coalition of nations calling on countries to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030 under the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, with Costa Rica leading the charge. Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada tells FRANCE 24 that losing ecosystems and biodiversity creates problems for humanity.

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Der Spiegel

January 11, 2021
Auf dem Klima- und Artenschutzgipfel »One Planet Summit« beraten Staats- und Regierungschefs aus aller Welt über verstärkte Bemühungen zur Rettung der Umwelt. Den ersten Schritt macht dabei Frankreich. Gastgeber Präsident Emmanuel Macron warb bei dem virtuellen Treffen am Montag in Paris für ein Projekt in Afrika, das mit Milliarden-Investitionen gefördert werden soll: die große Grüne Mauer.

Dafür sollen Tausende Kilometer Bäume wie ein grünes Band in der Sahelzone gepflanzt werden – von Dakar bis Dschibuti. Dies soll die Ausbreitung der Sahara und somit die Wüstenbildung stoppen und die Region auch vor Hungersnöten und Dürre schützen. Das Projekt ist seit vielen Jahren geplant, kam bisher jedoch nur langsam voran. Die Sahelzone in Afrika ist besonders vom Klimawandel betroffen.

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Agencia EFE

January 11, 2021
Medio centenar de países se comprometió este lunes a proteger al menos el 30 % de la superficie terrestre y marina para el año 2030, en el marco de una alianza internacional encabezada por Francia, Costa Rica y el Reino Unido.

La llamada Coalición de Alta Ambición para las Personas y la Naturaleza fue lanzada oficialmente durante la celebración en París y por videoconferencia de la cumbre One Planet Summit, que engloba los esfuerzos en favor de la protección de la biodiversidad.

Su objetivo es ambicioso: según indicó el presidente costarricense, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, actualmente solo está protegido el 15 % de toda la superficie terrestre y el 7 % de la marina.

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Washington Post

January 11, 2021
At least 50 countries committed to protecting 30% of the planet, including land and sea, over the next decade to halt species extinction and address climate change issues, during a global summit Monday aimed at protecting the world’s biodiversity.

About 30 leaders, government officials and heads of international organizations participated in the One Planet Summit, which was being held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic. Top U.S. officials were notably absent, as were the leaders of Russia, India and Brazil.

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Le Monde

January 11, 2021
To stimulate a global political momentum so that 2021 is indeed the “super year of biodiversity” that 2020 could not be. This is the ambition of the One Planet Summit organized by France, in a half-virtual, half-face format.

While a new roadmap to protect the living should be adopted at the end of the year in China, at the 15 th Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, thirty decision-makers (German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Chinese First Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen ...) were to set out new commitments, Monday 11 January.

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UN Climate Change News

January 11, 2021
In a virtual address today at the ‘One Planet Summit’ for biodiversity hosted by the French government in cooperation with the United Nations and the World Bank, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared 2021 as “the year to reconcile humanity with nature.”

He highlighted both the need to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and to provide adequate finance to adapt to the impacts of climate change, which include more frequent and more severe incidents of drought, flooding and fires.

While we have been abusing our planet as if we had a spare one, he said, ‘nature is striking back’, with record-high temperatures and collapsing biodiversity. Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, however, provides an opportunity to change course: “With smart policies and the right investments, we can chart a path that brings health to all, revives economies, builds resilience and rescues biodiversity,” he said, citing nature-based solutions such as Africa’s Great Green Wall as being especially promising.

At the One Planet Summit, a new 'High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People' was launched. The 50-State coalition committed to protecting 30% of land and seas worldwide by 2030 and calls on all States to join before the UN Biodiversity Summit COP15. And the Sahel region's Great Green Wall Initiative got a major boost, receiving at least 14 billion US dollars in new funding.

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The Guardian

January 11, 2021
A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife.

The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

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Brookings - OpEd

January 7, 2021
With COVID-19 vaccinations underway in some countries and efforts to expand access still ongoing, world leaders will soon shift their attention from crisis response to pandemic recovery. Governments have already committed $12 trillion to the COVID-19 response, and there will be strong pressure to keep investing in a return to the pre-pandemic “normal.” But that would be a mistake.

Putting aside budget constraints, we have just seen that the pre-pandemic normal had dire implications for the world. Our strained interactions with the environment helped introduce the coronavirus to humans, our hyperconnected global economy allowed it to spread like wildfire, and its especially deadly effects on the most vulnerable populations have highlighted the consequences of deep-seated social and economic inequalities within and between countries.

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The Weather Channel

January 6, 2021
When faced with major and unprecedented challenges, humanity across the globe has time and again united to share knowledge, information, resources, and more to collectively overcome the obstacles. As much has been evident during this ongoing pandemic, with efforts being taken on an unprecedented scale to annihilate this virus for good. Global cooperation and collaboration have been the hallmarks of our battle against the current invisible adversary.

Over the past several decades, this collaborative approach is being consistently used to deal with many threats that loom over most parts for the world—right from food shortages and extinction of species, to global warming and climate change. In 2021, such coalitions will once again take place—hopefully with a renewed cooperative spirit—in the form of several international events and conferences. 

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