Thomson Reuters Foundation News

June 27, 2022
Vital talks aimed at hammering out a new global pact to protect and restore nature did not make sufficient progress last week and are on the brink of failure, environmentalists have warned, urging political leaders to step in to salvage negotiations.

About 195 countries are set to finalise a deal to stem human damage to plants, animals and ecosystems - similar to the Paris climate agreement - at a U.N. summit, known as COP15, now set for December after being switched from China to Montreal.

The talks have been delayed due to logistical difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Negotiators met in Nairobi last week to work on a draft agreement after the first in-person session in two years in Geneva in March fell short.    

Marco Lambertini, director general of green group WWF International, said governments had moved forward on "very few elements of the draft" text during the last six days of talks.

That, he warned, leaves "the chance of securing an ambitious global agreement capable of tackling the world's accelerating nature crisis hanging by a thread". 

"We risk facing a 2030 world with even less biodiversity than we have today, driving entire ecosystems to collapse - that is just unacceptable," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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InterPress Service

June 27, 2022
As the last working group meeting of the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Agenda concluded here on Sunday, the delegates’ job at COP15 Montreal just got tougher as delegates couldn’t finalize the text of the agenda. Texts involving finance, cost and benefit-sharing, and digital sequencing – described by many as ‘most contentious parts of the draft agenda barely made any progress as negotiators failed to reach any consensus.

The week-long 4th meeting of the Working Group of the Biodiversity Convention took place from June 21-26, three months after the 3rd meeting of the group was held in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting, attended by a total of 1634 participants, including 950 country representatives, had the job cut out for them: Read the draft Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and its 21 targets, discuss, and clean up the text – target by target, sentence by sentence, at least up to 80%.

But, on Saturday – a day before the meeting was to wrap up, David Ainsworth – head of Communications at CBD, hinted that the progress was far slower than expected. Ainsworth mentioned that the total cleaning progress made was just about 8%.

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Reuters

June 25, 2022
With only two days left to hash out a U.N. draft agreement to protect global biodiversity, organizers on Friday urged delegates in Nairobi to "pick up the pace".

"We cannot afford to spend hours discussing one line of text," Basile van Havre, one of the two co-chairs of the talks, told Reuters.

Negotiations are scheduled to end on Sunday, with the draft agreement to be adopted in December by governments at a key biodiversity summit, known as "COP15".

But "at the current pace as we've seen, it will not be possible to have text [ready] for COP15," said co-chair Francis Ogwal during a plenary on Friday.

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The Guardian

June 21, 2022
The date for a key UN nature summit has finally been confirmed after more than two years of delays and amid fears momentum to halt biodiversity loss across the globe has been lost.

Ahead of the latest round of negotiations in Nairobi this week, the UN convention on biological diversity confirmed that the Cop15 biodiversity conference will now take place in Montreal, Canada, from 5 to 17 December, after it became clear China would not be able to host the event in Kunming due to the country’s zero-Covid policy.

It comes after several pandemic-related delays to the meeting, which was meant to take place in October 2020, and amid intense frustration with Beijing, who are holding the presidency for a major UN environmental agreement for the first time.

Fears had been building over the prohibitive cost for smaller countries to participate in Cop15 if it were held in China, along with concerns over restrictions on civil society, Indigenous groups and the press.

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Edie

June 21, 2022
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. Interim talks in Nairobi were, therefore, added to the UN’s calendar for this summer, and a final meeting 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.

With all of this in mind, concern had been growing that the summit would not conclude this year if its conclusion depended on a face-to-face event in China. This would mean that the post-2020 set of international biodiversity goals would be more than two years delayed in terms of their creation and implementation. The previous set of goals, the Aichi Goals, went unmet, and pressure is mounting on the UN to deliver a strong agreement to prevent Earth’s sixth mass extinction.

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Reuters

June 21, 2022
The United Nations said on Tuesday it would move talks to secure a global post-2020 biodiversity agreement from Kunming in China to Montreal, Canada, following multiple pandemic-related delays.

Delegates to the Dec. 5-17 summit of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP-15, will aim to adopt a global framework for biodiversity to halt and reverse losses of the world's plants, animals, and ecosystems.

Initially scheduled to take place in the southwestern Chinese city in October 2020, COP15 was delayed due to COVID-19. Though a first round of discussions was held virtually in Kunming in October 2021, the convention's secretariat announced this March that the summit had been delayed for a fourth time as China battled another wave of COVID-19 cases.

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NewScientist

June 20, 2022
A long-delayed UN biodiversity summit will be held in Canada this year rather than China as originally planned, after concerns that the Chinese government would postpone it until 2023 due to covid-19.

The COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to bring together the world’s governments to agree a new deal on halting the loss of animals, plants and habitats globally by 2030.

However, the conference has been repeatedly delayed from its original date of October 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, despite other major environment summits taking place. Now, a decision has been taken by the COP bureau to relocate the meeting from Kunming, China, to Montreal, Canada, on 5 to 17 December, three sources have told New Scientist. An official announcement by the CBD is expected imminently today.

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BirdLife International

June 20, 2022
From tomorrow (21-26 June), negotiators from around the world will convene in Nairobi, Kenya to work through the latest draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – a global plan to protect and restore biodiversity as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The final framework is expected to be adopted by the world’s governments at the upcoming UN biodiversity conference, COP15 (Conference of Parties), later this year. This meeting follows the Geneva meeting in March, which was criticised for its slow progress.

Despite uncertainty around the timing of COP15, the urgency to tackle the biodiversity crisis is ever present. We cannot afford any further delays in moving towards the completion of the global biodiversity framework and adoption at COP.

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Yahoo! Sports

June 20, 2022
The annual global summit on biodiversity, COP15, has been delayed by two months to December and will now be hosted in Canada rather than China, according to environmental charities.

This follows concerns the Chinese government would postpone the event for a fourth time into 2023 because of Covid-19 - the conference was originally due to be held in 2020.

The summit will provide governments a chance to come up with a long-term plan to reverse the threat to life on Earth - nearly a third of all species are currently endangered due to human activities.

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Nature

May 20, 2022
Researchers are increasingly concerned that the world is running two years behind schedule to finalize a new global framework on biodiversity conservation. They say the delay to the agreement, which aims to halt the alarming rate of species extinctions and protect vulnerable ecosystems, has consequences for countries’ abilities to meet ambitious targets to protect biodiversity over the next decade.

Representatives from almost 200 member states of the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) were set to meet in Kunming, China, in October 2020, to finalize a draft agreement. It includes 21 conservation targets, such as protecting 30% of the world’s land and seas. But the meeting, called the 15th Conference of the Parties, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been postponed several times since.

The conference is tentatively rescheduled for late August or early September, but China — which as the conference president is also the host — hasn’t confirmed the date. And now the country’s strict COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai and rising cases of the virus in Beijing have put that meeting in doubt, too.

Researchers say the delay in finalizing the agreement is stalling conservation work, especially in countries that rely on funds committed by wealthier nations to achieve the targets. The almost two-year hold-up means that countries will have less time to meet the agreement’s 2030 deadline. “We now have eight years to do more, whilst many countries are facing a recession and trying to prioritize economic recovery,” says Alice Hughes, a conservation biologist at the University of Hong Kong. “The longer we wait, the more diversity is lost.”

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The Statesman

May 18, 2022
While science shows that the crisis facing the natural world is accelerating, the UN process for addressing global biodiversity loss is at serious risk of further slowing down.

Initially scheduled for October 2020, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has already been delayed four times because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

With no official date announced for COP15, there is growing concern among scientists and other experts that countries are failing to address the biodiversity crisis with the required leadership and commitment.

Some 196 countries are working through the CBD to develop a global strategy to help stem the tide of catastrophic biodiversity loss, which threatens up to one million species with extinction within decades.

Countries have touted COP15 as an opportunity to deliver a deal for nature similar in ambition and significance to the Paris Climate Agreement, but repeated delays and a lack of urgency or high-level political attention could undermine that outcome if not addressed immediately.

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Campaign for Nature

May 17, 2022
While science shows that the crisis facing the natural world is accelerating, the U.N. process for addressing global biodiversity loss is at serious risk of further slowing down. Initially scheduled for October 2020, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has already been delayed four times because of the COVID pandemic. 

With no official date announced for COP15, there is growing concern among scientists and other experts that countries are failing to address the biodiversity crisis with the required leadership and commitment.

Some 196 countries are working through the CBD to develop a global strategy to help stem the tide of catastrophic biodiversity loss, which threatens up to one million species with extinction within decades. Countries have touted COP15 as an opportunity to deliver a deal for nature similar in ambition and significance to the Paris Climate Agreement, but repeated delays and a lack of urgency or high-level political attention could undermine that outcome if not addressed immediately.

The CBD COP Bureau is slated to meet on 19 May to discuss plans for COP15 and determine when the COP will take place. It is critical that the COP dates be firmly set and that the COP allows for equitable participation from all interested parties, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and civil society organizations.

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World Economic Forum

May 4, 2022
It has been a tough start to 2022. The war in Ukraine has shaken global geopolitical order and brought immense grief while disrupting supply chains and global economic stability. At the same time, the IPCC has issued dire warnings outlining the devasting consequences of climate change - including on business - if we don’t take urgent action and that the window for action is fast closing.

As the world struggles with political upheaval, we must also hold the long-term view in mind: that peace, a stable climate, and healthy ecosystems are the foundations of thriving and resilient societies and economies. 

The Paris Agreement on climate change was a rallying point for businesses on global warming. Another United Nations initiative that could have the same impact on biodiversity recently concluded its latest round of talks in Geneva. Leading businesses such as Unilever, Citi, Natura &Co, H&M Group, Holcim, GSK, Walmart, IKEA, Nestlé and L’Occitane joined Business for Nature and its partners Capitals Coalition, WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), CEBDS and the International Chamber of Commerce, on the ground - the first time so many progressive businesses have turned up at a nature negotiation pushing for greater ambition.

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Science Daily

April 26, 2022
Until now, measures to protect climate and biodiversity have often been developed in parallel. However, this is now considered outdated because many approaches can protect both climate and biodiversity. Scientists have now assessed the role of the potential future global biodiversity targets (Post-2020 Action Targets for 2030) for climate protection and found that about two thirds of these targets can also help to slow climate change.

When the global community is expected to meet for the second part of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, in autumn, it must also adopt the next generation of UN biodiversity targets. These will then replace the Aichi Targets that were aimed for until 2020 -- and have hardly been achieved. 21 "Post-2020 Action Targets for 2030" have already been pre-formulated. While they still have to be finally agreed, they aim to reduce potential threats to biodiversity, improve the well-being of humans, and implement tools and solutions for the conservation of biodiversity.

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Modern Diplomacy

April 20, 2022
Big uncertainties hung over when the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity would be held. It had been rescheduled several times because of the pandemic. Now, it is expected to be held in August this year in the Chinese city of Kunming. The goal of COP15 is to create a Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which would outline a roadmap for global action to maintain and protect biodiversity. After the round of preparatory talks in Geneva in April, parties decided to hold the next round of negotiations in Nairobi, from June 21 to 29, 2022, prior to the UN Convention. The meeting in Geneva resulted in the first agreed draft document for a post-2020 framework for nature, including goals, targets, and enabling mechanisms.

But there is still a long and stony road ahead. Despite the consensus on the main goals of the framework, disagreements are mainly regarding how to monitor the progress, finance for developing countries and divergence concerning specifics such as the reduction of nitrogen waste by 2030, among others. Leading policy makers have voiced concerns about the ambition of the GBF. As the EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said: “At COP15, the international community will seek to agree on an ambitious global biodiversity framework with strong monitoring to measure progress on the ground in reversing nature loss. But we are not there yet, and we need to significantly narrow the gaps between Parties’ positions.”

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