Hopes are high: Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, head of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, says she hopes for nothing less than a “Paris moment for species protection” from the World Nature Summit in Montreal, Canada. In Paris in 2015, participants at the United Nations climate conference agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. This is still considered a major breakthrough today, even if the goal is a long way off.
Photo: Montreal Firefighter – shutterstock.com
The 15th World Summit on Nature officially starts on Wednesday (7 December) and will run until 19 December. An opening ceremony, including with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, was already scheduled for late Tuesday evening (9.15 p.m. German time).
The organizers, scientists and representatives of non-governmental organizations are now hoping for something similar to that of Paris 2015: a trend-setting global agreement for the protection of species. It must be “ambitious and transformative,” demands Mrema, because it is about nothing less than the survival of humanity. “It won’t be easy, it will be hard work, but it is crucial to secure the future of humanity on this planet.”
Ahead of the conference, German scientists and representatives of non-governmental organizations called for a fundamental change in the economic system. The aim is to establish a form of management that is in harmony with nature and reflects the costs of species loss, according to the “Frankfurt Declaration”.
One of the main goals of the conference is to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and sea areas by 2030. According to some German experts, however, it is questionable whether this can be achieved. “I don’t think we’ll make it,” says Thomas Brey of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, looking out to sea. He sees resistance mostly from Asia and Russia. According to experts, around seven percent of the seas are currently protected.
A solid financial basis for global species protection also plays an important role in the forthcoming negotiations.
Agreement on species protection is urgently needed, says Mrema. “Our world is crying out for change. The current state of biodiversity is dire. 90 percent of the world’s ecosystems have been changed, one million species are threatened with extinction. Our planet is in crisis.”
We are currently experiencing the “largest species extinction since the dinosaur era”, but this time it is scientifically proven that it is a human-driven process, says Heike Vesper of the nature conservation association WWF Germany. “But biological diversity is the basis for our survival and also for our economy.”
Much depends on biodiversity, for example much of our food, raw materials, clean water, clean air and many medicines. In the last 50 years, the world’s population has doubled, the economy has quadrupled and world trade has increased tenfold. “We humans simply take more than the earth can give us.” Christof Schenck, winner of the German Environmental Prize 2022 and managing director of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, speaks of “mass extinction” with regard to biodiversity.
Originally, the 15th World Summit on Nature – which is also the abbreviation “COP-15” – was supposed to take place in China in 2020, but was then postponed and split due to the ongoing pandemic situation. The first part of the negotiations took place mainly online in Kunming last October, and the second part is now in Montreal, albeit still under Chinese presidency. In the meantime there have been numerous preparatory meetings at different levels and in different places.
The omens for Montreal are mixed: on the eve of the event there were “some tensions”, mainly of a political and diplomatic nature, between the Chinese presidency and the participating states, says Florian Titze of WWF Germany. A preparatory resolution for the meeting, for example, was not unanimously approved by the UN General Assembly, as is usually the case. Furthermore, the Chinese presidency has not invited any head of state or government to the summit – which is why it does not expect any – at least officially – for the moment.
At least UN Secretary-General António Guterres will arrive early, according to the UN. In a speech, Guterres wanted to underline how important it was to “make peace with nature,” he said.
“Come to Montreal with an open mind and flexibility, ready to compromise,” said Mrema, head of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The next challenge, however, is implementation. “A nice document with which we can decorate our shelves” is useless, says Mrema – and Titze of the WWF also warns of this: “In the past, we have always failed in implementation, not in objectives”. (dpa/announcement)
