Nations gathered in Montreal for the COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference have agreed to protect 30% of Earth for nature by 2030, in a historic agreement for the preservation of biodiversity.
The rich yet endangered biodiversity of the globe is to be protected through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Additionally, it includes goals for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights, as well as for the preservation and restoration of ecosystems including wetlands and rainforests.
We rely on biodiversity for food, medicine, energy, clean air and water, security from natural disasters, as well as recreation, and cultural inspiration, and it supports all systems of life on earth, according to the framework. Biodiversity is essential to human well-being, a healthy planet, and economic prosperity for all people. It is also essential for living well in balance and harmony with Mother Earth.
According to BBC News, the pact aims to protect genetic variety and ensure that natural resources, such as plant-based medicines, are distributed fairly and evenly.
According to BBC News, UN Secretary-General Ant nio Guterres stated that we are finally beginning to establish a peace agreement with nature.
The agreement contains a goal to stop the extinction of species, which has been progressing at an alarming rate, by taking immediate and dramatic action.
If nothing is done to lessen the intensity of the drivers of biodiversity loss, an estimated 1 million species already face extinction, many of them within decades. This is based on the average of about 25% of species in examined animal and plant groups being threatened. The global pace of species extinction, which is currently at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years, will accelerate further without such action, according to the framework.
According to The Guardian, the agreement also aims to overhaul $500 billion in environmentally detrimental subsidies.
It has very specific and defined goals for pesticides, stopping the extinction of species, and ending bad subsidies. According to The Guardian, France’s Minister for Ecological Transition and delegation leader Christophe B. Chu stated that the country would increase funding for biodiversity twofold in 2025 and thrice by 2030.
Despite a last-minute informal protest from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is home to the second-largest tropical forest on Earth, the accord was made official by the host China.
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The DRC declared that it did not endorse the accord and that it was the duty of wealthier nations to finance conservation efforts in underdeveloped nations. However, because those particular phrases were not used, the comments were not categorized as formal objections.
Some nations criticized the process as being undemocratic after China’s Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu approved the Kunming-Montreal framework despite reservations from the DRC. The framework depends on the participating nations acting with confidence and goodwill and is not legally enforceable.
It is completed legally. What can I say morally? According to The Guardian, Lee White, the minister of water, forests, the sea, and the environment of Gabon, declared the talks to be concluded.
Viviana Figueroa, a representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, expressed her satisfaction with the framework’s recognition of Indigenous peoples’ significance to biodiversity preservation.
It feels like a paradigm shift to us. According to Figueroa, they are acknowledging this crucial but hidden function, as The Guardian highlighted.
Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change lauded the accord and compared it to the 2015 Paris Agreement, a binding worldwide agreement to limit global temperatures to two degrees Celsius.
Guilbeault, as quoted by BBC News, remarked that this is a historical moment on par with what Paris achieved for the environment.
