BIODIVERSITY

First Comprehensive Biodiversity Report

Scientists on May 6, 2019 said that human activities are putting enormous pressure in the nature's ecosystem, leading to possible extinction of more than a million plant and animal species. However, there is still time to restore a more biodiverse planetary equilibrium if there is concerted and coordinated effort to fight against what "we have reconfigured dramatically life on the planet". The more than 1000-page report was compiled by Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) based on research of more than 15,000 scientific and government reports by more than 450 researchers. The report had to be approved by all 109 nations. The report also called for simultaneous work on fighting climate change and sustaining species. 

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Landmark Agreement Reached in 2022 Montreal Biodiversity Conference

The U.N. Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, was held at Montreal, Canada from December 7, 2022 to December 19, 2022. The conference had lofty goals to begin with, but descended in so called economic divide and fault zones that had affected so many environmental conferences before. African nations were passionate in raising their demand for fair share and creating a Biodiversity fund to help out the poor nations. One sticking point was about creating a new fund for Biodiversity. However, developed countries focused on creating a fund under the existing Global Environmental Facility. At last, African nations agreed to a new fund as part of GEF. French Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Bechu said that creating a "fund under the GEF is the best way to obtain something immediate and efficient". China, which holds the presidency in the conference, has unveiled an agreement framework on December 18, 2022. Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqui said that "we have in our hands a package" that might "halt and reverse biodiversity loss and put biodiversity on the path to recovery", to the rapturous applause of the officials. The key provision of the deal, agreed in the wee hours of December 19, 2022, is 30-by-30, implying 30% of terrestrial and marine areas are to be brought under the purview of protection clause of the deal by 2030. At present, only 17% of the terrestrial and 10% marine areas are under the protective cover. The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for Biodiversity. It [agreement] will commit $20 billion per year to poor nations for Biodiversity by 2025 and increase that to $30 billion per year by 2030. France's Christophe Bechu lauded the deal because it would strive for "very precise and quantified objectives on pesticides, on reduction of loss of species, on eliminating bad subsidies". 

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********** U.N. BIODIVERSITY CONFERENCE  (COP16) AT CALI, COLOMBIA *********

Global Biodiversity Conference Begins to Pursue 23 Measures Agreed Two Years Ago

Environmental leaders and policymakers launched the COP16, or the current round of the Biodiversity Conference, at Cali, Colombia on October 21, 2024 to put in place a workable mechanism, or at least a plan for it, to push forward with 23 measures, including preserving 30% of the planet and 30% of the degraded ecosystems under a protection plan by 2030. They are some of the follow-up action plans from the 2022 COP15 conference at Montreal, where 196 nations have participated, that the leaders in this conference are to undertake with a concrete set of plans. 

Key Decisions Made as COP16 Draws to an End

The two-week Conference of Parties 16, or COP16, conference in Cali came to a conclusion on November 2, 2024 with some modest, but significant, achievements. Main among them is a proposal to form a "subsidiary" body that will include indigenous people to make decisions on biodiversity. This proposal is a significant victory for indigenous rights and say in issues related to biodiversity. Another important achievement is to agree on obliging biotechnology firms benefitting from rainforests and assets from other indigenous regions for producing invaluable medication and therapies that bring hefty revenues for the firms to share 0.1% of revenue with the source communities. The revenue sharing model, formally known as "Genetic Information Fee" model, will reinvest money in the development of many impoverished regions where the biotech firms source their product from. 

********** U.N. BIODIVERSITY CONFERENCE  (COP16) AT CALI, COLOMBIA *********