Hours before the conclusion of the COP 15 Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which is currently being held in Montreal, Canada, disagreements raged over some of the issues contained in the proposed text of the final statement, which was announced by China, a short time ago, in its capacity as chair of the current session of the conference, which it hopes to To be accepted by representatives of about 200 countries.
And while the Montreal Conference on Biological Diversity, which concludes its work later today, is the last opportunity to achieve reconciliation with nature, restore damaged environmental and ecological systems and put them on the right path towards recovery, divisions prevailed among the participating delegations, during the last moments, over a number of points of contention, related to the cost of protecting natural systems.
The conference is going through difficult hours
And China, as the official president of the conference held in Montreal, published a new draft of the draft final statement, which was distributed to the heads of delegations and ministers participating in the meetings of the high-level political component, and who began discussing the draft behind closed doors, while environmental groups considered that “the conference passes Difficult hours.
While the draft final statement includes a number of clauses related to the protection of indigenous peoples and the promotion of their rights, in addition to calls for the provision of more international sources of funding to protect biodiversity in developing countries, the majority of delegations of coastal countries criticized the absence of any reference to the protection of life in the oceans in the draft. suggested.
Biodiversity can’t wait
And while Sue Lieberman, from the Association of Wildlife Reserves, considered that “the text contains good points, and if governments believe in implementing them, nature will be, by 2030, better than it is now.” The international organization “Bird Life” criticized the draft final statement, and said Amy MacDougall, in a statement from the organization: “We can not underestimate the size of our ambitions, biodiversity can not wait.”
“The new plan is very weak,” Tony Juniper, head of the Environmental Consultancy Organization, one of the British government’s organizations, wrote on the organization’s official page. This is in reference to the new global framework for biodiversity.
China: strong steps towards success
For his part, the Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment, Huang Runqiu, President of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15), confirmed that the negotiations that took place at the ministerial level, within the meetings of the high-level political component, which concluded earlier Sunday, It resulted in “taking strong steps towards success”.
In response to a question about whether the differences that emerged during the last hours might affect achieving the desired results of the conference at the specified time, the Chinese minister replied that he feels optimistic, and said: “We can conclude the negotiations as scheduled, all parties want to reach an agreement.” He stressed that “we can overcome contentious issues, and at the end of the negotiations we will have a new framework.”
And the head of the (COP 15) conference continued, “We must race against time, confront the causes of biodiversity loss, and take reform measures in production, consumption and trade.” He added: “We must also develop scientific methods to measure the natural costs of economic activities, and mobilize the largest possible amount of resources.” And the establishment of an executive mechanism and national action plans to form an ambitious and realistic framework.
Global framework for biodiversity
The proposed framework for protecting environmental diversity for the year 2030, which was called for at the COP 14 conference in 2018 in Sharm El-Sheikh, includes 4 broad goals regarding environmental protection and sharing its benefits, and includes 22 goals, ranging from the rational use of environmental resources to life management. wilderness, re-establishing damaged nature reserves, and reducing the use of plastic and pesticides.
In view of the end of the global framework for biological diversity for the period between 2011 and 2020, the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity announced the first official draft of the new global framework until 2030, and it was scheduled to be adopted during the (COP-15) conference in China, in October 2021, but it was Its adoption has been deferred to the second part of the Conference of the Parties in Montreal.
The COP 15 conference was scheduled to be held in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, China, in 2020, but it was postponed several times due to the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, until the conference was later divided into two parts. The first was held in China during October 2021. While the second part was held in Montreal, Canada, from 7 to 19 December 2022.
