China Dialogue

October 19, 2021
The first session of the most important global biodiversity meeting in a decade was held in Kunming between 11 and 15 October, in an in-person and online hybrid format. 

The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) launched a new stage in talks towards a global deal for nature – known as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. China, as host nation, is ushering the CBD towards a roadmap for biodiversity conservation for the coming decade and beyond. Delegates to the talks were in agreement: the Aichi targets set in 2010 have been missed, but Kunming cannot be allowed to fail.

The Covid-19 pandemic has hampered progress towards the post-2020 framework, with proceedings delayed or forced online. At meetings of two subsidiary bodies to the CBD in May and June, network issues excluded most African nations from online discussions, leading them to request some matters be renegotiated in January next year. 

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Canada’s National Observer

October 15, 2021

In the run-up to the UN’s crucial climate conference at month’s end, global leaders have laid the foundation for an international framework to protect nature and halt the collapse of biodiversity worldwide while also curbing global warming and protecting human health.

More than 100 nations committed to the Kunming Declaration on Wednesday, a promise to put the natural world on a path to recovery by 2030.

The world is in a dire situation, facing an era of unprecedented species extinction, said COP15 president and China’s Environment Minister Huang Runqui.

As many as a million species of animals and plants are at peril in coming decades, according to a UN report.

The fate of the natural world and humanity are intertwined, Huang said.

“Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose major risks to human survival and sustainable development.”

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BusinessGreen

October 15, 2021
The first phase of the COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Kunming, China closed today with the UN expressing confidence the week long talks had helped set the stage for the adoption of a new international treaty next year to ramp up global biodiversity protection.

The latest round of virtual talks delivered a wave of new funding pledges for nature protection and broad political support for a new set of global targets that would serve to curb rates of biodiversity loss over the next decade.

The COP15 Summit had been scheduled to take place this week with diplomats hoping it would finalise a new set of global targets for nature protection and restoration that would provide a boost to the parallel climate negotiations set to get underway at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow next month.

However, the coronavirus crisis forced a second postponement of the global talks, with the UN and Chinese hosts staging a virtual round of talks this week ahead of the conclusion of the summit in person next spring.

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New Strait Times

October 14, 2021
At a meeting of Parties to the United Nation's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in the southern Chinese city of Kunming, world governments are looking ahead to the adoption of new goals and targets for nature to be met this decade: CBD's "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework" (GBF).

The draft framework lays out broad actions to help transform society's relationship with biodiversity and fulfil a previously agreed shared vision of "living in harmony with nature" by 2050.

This week's online summit Part One sets the stage for a decisive face-to-face meeting in April. Among the new targets is one advanced by the Campaign for Nature (CFN): protect 30 per cent of the world's land and marine areas by 2030.

These should consist of protected areas and "other effective area-based conservation measures" (OECMs), such as territories inhabited by indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs).

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The Guardian

October 14, 2021
The calls for biodiversity and the climate crisis to be tackled in tandem are growing. “It is clear that we cannot solve [the global biodiversity and climate crises] in isolation – we either solve both or we solve neither,” says Sveinung Rotevatn, Norway’s climate and environment minister, with the launch in June of a report produced by the world’s leading biodiversity and climate experts. Zoological Society of London senior research fellow Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, who led a study on the subject published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in September, says: “The level of interconnectedness between the climate change and biodiversity crises is high and should not be underestimated. This is not just about climate change impacting biodiversity; it is also about the loss of biodiversity deepening the climate crisis.”

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EuroNews

October 14, 2021
Around 195 countries signed a pledge on Wednesday to come up with an “ambitious and transformative” plan to prevent our planet from losing its biodiversity.

Meeting as part of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, also known as COP15, they took on what has been called the defining challenge of this decade.

Named after the city in China where this conference is taking place, the Kunming Declaration signals a change in momentum. It is hoped that this first part of the summit will allow countries to come up with an agreement similar to the Paris Accords - but for the protection of biodiversity rather than climate change.

That agreement is expected to be finalised at the second half of the conference next year.

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The New York Times

October 14, 2021

As 20,000 government leaders, journalists, activists and celebrities from around the world prepare to descend on Glasgow for a crucial climate summit starting late this month, another high-level international environmental meeting got started this week. The problem it seeks to tackle: A rapid collapse of species and systems that collectively sustain life on earth.

The stakes at the two meetings are equally high, many leading scientists say, but the biodiversity crisis has received far less attention.

“If the global community continues to see it as a side event, and they continue thinking that climate change is now the thing to really listen to, by the time they wake up on biodiversity it might be too late,” said Francis Ogwal, one of the leaders of the working group charged with shaping an agreement among nations.

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Campaign For Nature

October 13, 2021
At the much-anticipated virtual opening of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Chinese President Xi, heads of state and ministers from around the world came together to stress the critical importance of conservation and the protection of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who safeguard nature.  

The meeting, which will be followed by meetings in Geneva and Kunming, China next year, underlined growing ambition to change our relationship with nature. It indicated an urgency to agree upon a transformative global vision and commit the financial commitments necessary to champion the critical infrastructure, which are lagging behind. 

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Thomson Reuters Foundation News

October 13, 2021
China's launch of a biodiversity fund is a "good start" but falls short of what is needed to help developing countries meet the goals in a global nature pact, environmentalists warned, urging all rich nations to step up ambition and funding.

About 195 countries are set to finalise a new accord to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at a two-part U.N. summit that began this week and is due to be finish in May next year in the Chinese city of Kunming.

Addressing the COP15 biodiversity virtual summit on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the highly anticipated launch of a 1.5 billion yuan ($232.47 million) fund to support biodiversity protection in developing countries.

But China's funding pledge was a "drop in the bucket" and disappointing "for such a major world power", said Charles Barber, a senior biodiversity advisor at the World Resources Institute, a U.S.-based think-tank.

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South China Morning Post

October 12, 2021
China will donate 1.5 billion yuan (US$232.5 million) to set up a new fund to help developing countries protect the variety of plant and animal life, President Xi Jinping has pledged at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15).

“China will take the lead and contribute 1.5 billion yuan to set up the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity development of developing countries,” Xi told the conference via video link on Tuesday. “China calls for and welcomes all parties to contribute and support strengthening protection of biodiversity.”

Xi also pledged to accelerate the development of wind and solar power in China.

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The Guardian

October 11, 2021
All eyes are on Cop26 in Glasgow since the climate crisis aroused worldwide attention and compelled more than 120 countries to join the unprecedented global Race to Zero carbon-emissions campaign. But the UN biodiversity conference in Kunming, or Cop15, should not be overshadowed, as biodiversity loss is an equally grave threat to humanity.

Cop15, delayed repeatedly by the Covid-19 pandemic, will take place in two parts, online from 11 October, with more detailed discussions left for April’s meeting in Kunming, China. The conference will convene governments from around the world to agree new goals for nature for the next decade, as global biodiversity losses pose a threat to human wellbeing, affecting food, health and security, and increasing the likelihood of pandemics.

Humanity has achieved unprecedented development and prosperity over the past 50 years, with the world population more than doubling and global GDP growing from barely $3tn in 1970 to nearly $85tn in 2020. But in this time nature has suffered enormous losses, with the global populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish declining by two-thirds on average, according to last year’s Living Planet report.

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Reuters

October 8, 2021
Global leaders will gather virtually next week to discuss protecting nature across the planet and experts say there's no time to lose. Animal and plant species are going extinct at a rate not seen in 10 million years.

The losses are accelerating, scientists say, thanks largely to climate change, deforestation, pollution, overfishing and urban development. To limit the loss, the United Nations has urged countries to commit to conserving 30% of their land – almost double the area now under some form of protection.

About 70 countries have committed to the target, which would include about a third of the world's land animals and plants, according to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.

China begins hosting the U.N. Conference on Biodiversity, known as COP15, in the city of Kunming on Monday, with most discussions taking place online because of COVID restrictions. A second round will be held next year.

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Xinhuanet

October 8, 2021
The upcoming United Nations (UN) biodiversity conference to be held in the Chinese city of Kunming will be essential in setting the blueprint for fixing the world's biodiversity crisis in the next "decisive decade," a U.S. expert has said.

James Roth, senior vice president for global policy and government affairs at Conservation International (CI), a non-profit international organization based in the United States with a mission to promote global biodiversity and the well-being of humanity, said this in an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday.

The first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP15, is set to kick off on Monday both online and in person. The meeting will review the "post-2020 global biodiversity framework" to draw a blueprint for biodiversity conservation in the future.

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The Wire

October 8, 2021
A growing global push to safeguard nature by pledging to protect about a third of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 will fall short unless biodiversity-rich Southeast Asian nations get behind the ambitious proposal, environmentalists have warned.

Leaders of the G7 wealthy nations this month backed a coalition of about 60 countries that have already promised to conserve at least 30% of their land and oceans by 2030 (30 × 30) to curb climate change and the loss of plant and animal species.

Cambodia is the only Southeast Asian nation to have signed up to the goal so far, although it has been endorsed by countries in other parts of the Asia-Pacific, including Japan, Pakistan and the Maldives.

Brian O’Donnell, director of the US-based Campaign for Nature, which is calling on world leaders to back the pledge, said it was “very important” to get governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on board.

“Given the incredible biodiversity in the region, much of which is facing pressure, ASEAN countries are a key voice to support 30 × 30,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Southeast Asian countries cover just 3% of the Earth’s surface but are home to three of the world’s 17 “megadiverse” countries – Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, according to the Campaign for Nature.

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Riff Reporter

October 8, 2021
One year late, almost 200 countries will start the final spurt of their negotiations on the future of nature and biodiversity at the 15th World Biodiversity Summit in Kunming, China, starting October 11th. The most important goal is to pass a new agreement to protect the natural foundations of life on earth. This is to stop the greatest extinction of species in human history and bring the use of nature on a sustainable and just path.

The Kunming Agreement is just as important in the fight against the global crisis in nature as the Paris Climate Agreement is in the fight against global warming. The final round of negotiations and adoption is not planned until the second part of the summit in spring. The three-day opening session could, however, bring important preliminary decisions about how ambitious the states are to tackle the fight against the planet's ecological crisis. The eyes are mainly on host China. Insiders think surprises are possible.

There will be no shortage of big words at the opening conference for the first part of the World Biodiversity Conference in Kunming. The Chinese government as host, the United Nations as host and the representatives of the almost 200 states party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), who are only virtually connected, will not miss the dramatic state of nature on our planet and its improvement Prospect to face.

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