Biodiversity Takes Center Stage at COP15 Summit

More than 100 nations par­tic­i­pat­ing at the COP15 inter­na­tional sum­mit in Kunming, China, have agreed to pro­tect bio­di­ver­sity.

Governments and insti­tu­tions announced that pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­sity will drive their future poli­cies but did not present any bind­ing com­mit­ment to do so.

Among the goals set by the sum­mit was the so-called 30 – 30 plan: to pre­serve and pro­tect at least 30 per­cent of each country’s land by 2030. However, a pro­posal to try and halt mass extinc­tion did not find its way into the declaration’s final draft, which includes dozens of old and new bio­di­ver­sity goals.

At the first install­ment of COP15, with the sec­ond round to be held next year, United Nations bio­di­ver­sity chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema said that the world has reached ​“a moment of truth” and empha­sized how all pre­vi­ous bio­di­ver­sity poli­cies have failed.

More specif­i­cally, the 2010 bio­di­ver­sity agree­ment signed in Aichi, Japan, laid the ground­work for dozens of bio­di­ver­sity pro­tec­tion strate­gies, none of which have come to fruition. A fail­ure, said Maruma Mrema, which hit ecosys­tems that are essen­tial for sus­tain­ing human well-being.

Farming is increas­ingly con­sid­ered essen­tial not only for reduc­ing green­house gases but also for the role it can play in restor­ing habi­tats.

The COP15 final dec­la­ra­tion draft intends to fos­ter sus­tain­able farm­ing, which is also one of the goals set by var­i­ous national green plans such as the European Union’s Green Deal.

The dec­la­ra­tion also aims at increas­ing ​“ecosys­tem-based approaches” to address bio­di­ver­sity loss, restore degraded regions, boost habi­tat resilience, mit­i­gate and adapt to cli­mate change and pro­mote health, among other goals.

The dec­la­ra­tion fur­ther calls for the grow­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion of local com­mu­ni­ties and indige­nous peo­ples in defin­ing inter­ven­tions focused on restor­ing and pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­sity.

The coun­tries that pledged to sign the dec­la­ra­tion dur­ing next year’s COP15 final meet­ing have also agreed to imple­ment new poli­cies aimed at halt­ing plas­tic waste, which is a ubiq­ui­tous global prob­lem.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, one mil­lion plas­tic drink­ing bot­tles are pur­chased every minute, and five tril­lion sin­gle-use plas­tic bags are used world­wide every year.

“In total, half of all plas­tic pro­duced is designed to be used only once, and then thrown away,” UNEP said.

In 2018, Great Britain’s Royal Statistical Society esti­mated that only nine per­cent of all plas­tic ever made will be recy­cled.

A study reported by National Geographic in 2018 showed that since the 1950s, humans have pro­duced 8.3 bil­lion met­ric tons of plas­tics.

A May 2021 arti­cle pub­lished in Nature hints at the wide­spread pres­ence of micro-plas­tics on the planet as a poten­tial bio­di­ver­sity threat.

Plastics smaller than five mil­lime­ters have been found in all water and ground sam­ples used for study­ing the phe­nom­e­non, such as deep oceans, Antarctic ice, shell­fish, table salt, drink­ing water and beer. They were also funded in rain and snow, and will take dozens of years to degrade.

Uncertainties loom on the COP15 sum­mits since it is not clear if all coun­tries will sign the 30 – 30 pledge and the other most ambi­tious goals, includ­ing the major plas­tic pro­ducer and sum­mit host, China.

The dec­la­ra­tion will be sub­mit­ted to the General Assembly of the United Nations and become part of the cur­rent ten­ants on sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.

• Convention on Biological Diversity
• DW
• United Nations Environmental Program