Is this really a peace pact with nature?
Is biodiversity really being protected?
An historic agreement was reached today by almost 200 countries, in a bid to tackle the global biodiversity emergency.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the targets as a "peace pact with nature" at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal. But notably absent from signatories was the US, criticised by many for not being a party to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity and attending the summit only as an observer. And the targets, when they came, were far less ambitious than most had hoped.
The new agreement sets out some decent goals, including the headline 30x30 – safeguarding at least 30% of the world’s land, inland waters, coastal areas and oceans by 2030. Today 17% of land areas are protected, and only 10% of the world’s seas. Subsidies will be stamped out for activities seen as harmful to nature, including some forms of agriculture and fishing. And business will be called on to play its part too, with a new target requiring businesses to assess and report their dependence on biodiversity.
The global picture of biodiversity loss behind this summit is bleak, with the average country having lost almost 25% of all species. The UK’s position is more worrying still – having lost an estimated 47% of all species. Since 1970, the UK has seen almost a 70% decline in populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. This puts us in the bottom 10% globally for biodiversity - and makes us the most nature-depleted of the G7 countries (the US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy).
A number of key compromises were made in the final days of negotiation, with strong opposition to targets voiced by Uganda, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Global Environmental Facility will now total $20bn a year by 2025 and £30bn a year by 2030 – far less than the figures originally put forward. And, although the EU has pledged €7bn towards biodiversity conservation between 2021 and 2027, only a handful of its 27 member states have followed suit.
Although hailed as “an historic moment” by China’s environment minister and COP15 President, Huang Runqiu, the agreement has been criticized already by leading biodiversity organisations for its watered-down language and vague timelines for taking action.
“We are particularly concerned by the weak language on species which would commit countries to halting extinctions at some point before 2050, instead of 2030”, said the WWF.
In his report to the House of Lords last year, Lord Teverson described the biodiversity emergency as “the twin of climate change. They are both emergencies; one cannot be solved without the other”.
The new framework replaces the Aichi biodiversity targets first set in 2010 – none of which have been met to date.
Jenny Oliver - Managing Director