(Montreal) Progress has been made over the past few days at COP15 in Montreal and cooperation between Canada and China in organizing the event is positive, according to the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
During a press conference with journalists at the end of the day on Monday, the executive secretary of the CBD, the UN body in charge of COP15, said he was more optimistic than last week.
“We hope to have an agreement before December 19 midnight, we have no plans to go beyond this date”, but “there are obstacles in the road”, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema pointed out.
Amid the obstacles, he explained, “all the numerical values of the targets” of the draft declaration are “still in square brackets”.
Square brackets or parentheses indicate parts of the text where there is no consensus.
“Are we planning to reduce the rate of species extinction by 15%? Reduce the use of pesticides by 15%?” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema said when asked by The Canadian Press to cite examples of “barriers”.
Photo by Andrej Ivanov, Agence France-Presse
Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema
Answers to these questions should come in the next few hours, as the draft declaration is due to be presented to ministers from various countries on Thursday at the so-called “high-level panel” where political representatives work. To put the finishing touches to the contract.
According to Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, 135 ministers from various countries will attend in the coming days.
The 196 countries meeting in Montreal must agree by December 19 to set up a global framework to curb biodiversity loss.
Positive cooperation between China and Canada
China is chairing this year’s Biodiversity Summit, but Canada is hosting.
Despite the increasingly strained relations between the two countries, the CBD executive secretary said the representatives of both countries managed to cooperate well. “China and Canada are playing their role” and “they are showing leadership”, noting that ministers from the two countries meet regularly.
China was due to host the meeting, but health restrictions and repeated lockdowns of major Chinese cities forced the United Nations to return to Canada.
Faith and the “Creative Spirit”
In the morning, the EU’s director-general for the environment, Florika Fink-Hooijer, said she had “a lot of hope” because of the “constructive attitude” of delegates gathered at COP15.
“It is progressing, if you look, there are a lot of finalized texts, which gives us hope,” the European representative pointed out, adding that “before the ministers arrive on Thursday”, “there is still time to do technical work”.
Until then, delegates should adopt as many objectives as possible and make the draft text as clear as possible.
A Canadian official told The Canadian Press that we hope to have “about 80% clear text” by Wednesday.
Environment Minister Steven Guillefeld told The Canadian Press in an interview Monday that during Saturday’s formal negotiations, 35% of the 22 targets were clear, with fewer words in brackets.
Finance at the heart of negotiations
At a press conference, a spokesperson for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) indicated that there are positive conversations around some of the objectives, including a flagship proposal that aims to protect 30% of the planet’s land and water by 2030.
But Lucia Ruiz Bustos, WWF’s biodiversity and finance coordinator in Mexico, says negotiations on how the world will fund its goals and targets appear to have stalled. Guido Broekhoven, WWF’s head of research and development, talks a lot about how to find US$700 billion by 2030.
According to many countries, this is the amount needed to finance a plan to reverse the decline in biodiversity, but governments alone cannot fund this effort.
“The actual scale required to implement the global framework for the 2020-2030 decade depends on the ambition of countries,” underlined Guido Brogoven.
“The higher the ambition, the more resources will be required,” he added.
The various representatives in Montreal rely on philanthropic contributions, but also on the support of the private sector to find ways to implement a project that meets expectations.
The person responsible for research and development within WWF underlined the significant number of private companies attending the Montreal conference and the importance of their potential contribution.
“We have never seen so many organizations participating in a conference on biodiversity” and many of them “want to understand how they can contribute to solving biodiversity problems”.
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