Diálogo China

July 21, 2022
After two years of postponements and a change in format, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 biodiversity talks will now take place in Montreal, Canada, this December. There is still much work to do in the coming months, if countries are to secure a new global agreement on protecting biodiversity in the coming decade.

At the recent UN Ocean Conference, which took place in Lisbon earlier this month, China Dialogue Ocean spoke with Elizabeth Mrema, the CBD’s executive secretary, about progress so far, on why the talks were relocated from China to Canada, and what needs to happen in the run-up to the event.

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Campaign For Nature

July 21, 2022
At the Africa Nature Finance Forum, held yesterday on the sidelines of the inaugural African Protected Areas Congress (APAC) 2022, government leaders and experts from across Africa called for an urgent increase in financing to protect the world’s biodiversity.

“By 2100, we may lose half of our bird and animal species, 20-30% of the productivity of African lakes and significant numbers of our plant species,” said Hon. Lee White, Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Gabon. “In this context, without strong action, we will create instability and security issues all over the African continent. One of the key elements is the mobilization of predictable and sustainable resources. This is why we need to think about innovative and sustainable finance for nature.” 

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IUCN

July 19, 2022
The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) taking place in Kigali this week offers an opportunity for BIODEV2030 stakeholders from six African countries - Benin, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Uganda – to demonstrate their progress in mainstreaming biodiversity in priority business sectors.

BIODEV2030 is working in a total of 16 countries, testing different approaches to mainstream biodiversity and catalyse voluntary commitments in key economic sectors. At a global level, BIODEV2030 is sharing its outcomes and lessons learned to inspire other countries to take similar action in support of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework being negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

In addition to the countries mentioned above, BIODEV2030 is operating in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, and Tunisia, as well as in Fiji, Guyana, and Vietnam.  Such diversity creates a unique opportunity for the countries to learn from each other, based on a shared multi-stakeholder diagnosis and dialogue, which reflects each country’s particular realities.

“Mainstreaming is a subject that is often misunderstood and largely theoretical, which is why a practical, evidence-based approach at the country level is so welcome,” said Sonia Peña Moreno, Director of IUCN’s International Policy Centre.  

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China Dialogue

July 19, 2022
On 21 June, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that the second phase of COP15 – the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity – would be relocated from the southern Chinese city of Kunming to Montreal, Canada, and held 5–17 December.

The news confirmed rumours that had been circulating for some time, and sparked widespread discussion. I have been working closely on COP15 for three years and was not surprised by the change of venue. But it remains disappointing.

Originally scheduled for October 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic saw the meeting initially postponed to May 2021, and then split into two phases. The first, made up of non-negotiation agenda items, was held last October and most international participants attended virtually. The second phase was due to take place in the first half of this year.

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PHYS.ORG

July 18, 2022
Delegates from across Africa launched Monday in Rwanda the first continent-wide gathering about the role of protected areas in ensuring the future of our planet.

The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) is being held just a few months before the COP15 summit in December when global leaders are aiming to adopt a much-delayed pact to shield nature from the damage wrought by human activity.

"Protected areas are critical for the survival of the planet," International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) director general Bruno Oberle said on the opening day of the talks in the capital Kigali.

"And the more we manage them for the benefit of people and nature,the more we will build a future where everyone—human and animal—thrives," he said on Twitter.

Organisers said APAC will aim to shape the role of protected and conserved areas in safeguarding Africa's wildlife, delivering vital ecosystem services, and promoting sustainable development while conserving the continent's cultural heritage and traditions.

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Eco-Business

July 14, 2022
One in five people rely on wild species for income and food, while one in three rely on wood fuel for cooking, according to a major new report. Its authors aim to demonstrate how the use of wild species is far more prevalent than most people realise and that the decline of nature threatens human lives and livelihoods.

The report follows four years of work by 85 experts in the natural and social sciences and holders of indigenous and local knowledge around the world. They were working under the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a  body set up to advise policymakers on biodiversity.

In 2019, IPBES warned that one million species were at risk of extinction. It found that over-exploitation of wild species was the second-largest driver of this trend for species living on land or freshwater, after land degradation and habitat destruction. For marine species, over-exploitation is the biggest driver.

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Reuters

July 13, 2022
You might have thought that when the pandemic brought tourism to a sudden halt, it would have been good for nature. Some areas overrun by tourists fell quiet, and animals roamed more widely, while trampled flora began to recover. But the impact on species and ecosystems wasn’t all positive.

“What we saw very clearly, when tourism had evaporated, was that people really started to wake up to how important the sector was,” suggests Anna Spenceley, an independent researcher and chair of a specialist working group on protected areas for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“Conservationists realised: hang on … communities are no longer getting any benefit from (tourism). And now they're going to start hunting whatever we have tried to protect in our conservation area, because they've got no money coming in,” says Spenceley.

Coming out of the pandemic, conservation groups, governments and some tour operators are trying to promote a more sustainable approach to tourism, reframing relationships with nature to encourage biodiversity rather than degrade it.

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Enviro360

July 9, 2022
Conservation organizations have cautioned that talks on a worldwide pact to safeguard nature this decade run the risk of failing to reach a consensus unless political leaders step up.

The fourth round of talks to establish a global framework to stop the devastation of the earth’s ecosystems came to a close on Sunday in Nairobi, Kenya, with essentially no progress made.

The Campaign for Nature’s director, Brian O’Donnell, told Climate Home News that the situation was “dark.” Instead of uniting on goals, negotiators turned to argue over details. The most significant difficulties have not changed noticeably.

This was the final scheduled conference before negotiators gather at Cop15 in Montreal, Canada, from December 5–17, to finalize the deal that has been dubbed the “Paris Agreement for nature.”

The biodiversity treaty, though, hardly registers on the international agenda four years after the process began as nations struggle with the coronavirus outbreak, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and skyrocketing prices.

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Campaign for Nature

June 30, 2022
At the United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference taking place in Lisbon this week, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People (HAC) announced that 100 countries have now committed to its core mission to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by the end of the decade, also known as “30x30.” The science-driven, global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 is one of the cornerstones of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework set to be agreed at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) now taking place in Montreal 5 to 17 December 2022. 

Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United States of America, Estonia, Saint Lucia, Bahrain, Montenegro, and Burkina Faso are among the latest countries to sign on to the HAC, an intergovernmental group of over 100 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom as the Ocean co-chair. Together, HAC member countries hold more than 58% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and more than 38% of the world’s terrestrial carbon stocks. HAC member countries hold more than 54% of the biodiversity conservation priorities that exist within marine exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and more than 54% of the seafloor carbon within EEZs.

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Phys.org

June 27, 2022
Delegates from almost 200 nations have made little progress towards hammering out a blueprint for a global pact to protect nature from human activity, after almost a week of difficult talks in Nairobi.

The meetings wrapping up Sunday were aimed at ironing out differences among the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) 196 members, with barely six months before a crucial COP15 summit in December.

The ambitious goal is to draw up a draft text outlining a global framework to "live in harmony with nature" by 2050, with key targets to be met by 2030.

Many hope the landmark deal, when finalised, will be as ambitious in its goals to protect life on Earth as the Paris agreement was for climate change.

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Climate Home News

June 27, 2022
The fourth round of negotiations to agree on an international framework to halt the destruction of the earth’s ecosystems ended in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday, with virtually no progress being made.

“It’s a bleak picture,” Brian O’Donnell director of the Campaign for Nature, told Climate Home News. “Negotiators resorted to technical bickering rather than aligning on ambition. There has been no discernible movement on the most important issues.”

The meeting was the last planned before negotiators meet at Cop15 in Montreal, Canada, from 5-17 December, to finalise the agreement which has been widely billed as the “Paris Agreement for nature”.

But four years since the start of the process, the biodiversity pact barely registers on the international agenda, as governments wrangle with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine and soaring inflation.

Eight conservation groups have urged UN chief António Guterres to convene political leaders to “step in and help get it done” in an open letter. “We must sound the alarm that this process has reached a crisis point,” they wrote.

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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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