As countries gather at Cop15 in Montreal to agree on a deal to protect the planet’s biodiversity, the Executive Director of the UN environment programme, Inger Andersen has warned of an impending biodiversity apocalypse, adding that “we are at war with nature” and must “make peace”.
In her words, “We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure”.
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Speaking further, she said “as far as biodiversity is concerned, we are at war with nature. We need to make peace with nature. Because nature is what sustains everything on Earth … the science is unequivocal.”
Andersen noted that the final text of any agreement must tackle “the five horsemen of the biodiversity apocalypse”: land-use change; overexploitation; pollution; the climate crisis; and the spread of invasive species.
Over 10,000 participants are expected at Cop15, which is scheduled to run until 19 December, with ministers arriving in the second week to help finish the text. The draft targets included in the global biodiversity framework (GBF) involve proposals to protect 30% of land and sea, repurpose billions of dollars of harmful subsidies and tackle invasive species.
The EU’s environment commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius that If governments are to reach an ambitious final agreement, China must show leadership in the talks. And China, which holds the presidency for Cop15, is the world’s biggest carbon emitter – although Canada, the US and Australia have much higher CO2 emissions per capita.
This will be the first time that Beijing has taken the lead on a major UN environmental agreement.
Although Cop15 was moved from Kunming to Montreal earlier this year due to China’s zero-Covid policy, it still presents a chance for the country to show off its “ecological civilisation” credentials to the world, a high-profile part of President Xi Jinping’s domestic agenda.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
