Ahead of Cop 15 on biodiversity, to be held in China in October, the United Nations has put forward its proposals for the protection of species.
At least 30 per cent of the world's land surfaces and oceans must be placed under protection. The aim is to stabilise the rate of biodiversity loss by 2030, and to allow it to recover by 2050, enabling ecosystems to regenerate. This is the mission that the United Nations has assigned to Cop 15, the fifteenth Conference on biodiversity, to be held in October in Kunming, China.
The first draft agreement to be discussed next autumn was published on 13 January. It draws on the conclusions published by the UN's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity, which in a lengthy report published last May highlighted the weight exerted by agriculture, deforestation, fishing, hunting, climate change, pollution and invasive species on the degradation to which nature is subjected. Factors that "have already severely altered three quarters of land surfaces, 40 per cent of marine ecosystems and half of freshwater ones". So much so that the number of threatened species could reach one million (out of a total of eight million) in the coming decades.
For this reason, the United Nations proposal to Cop 15 on biodiversity is to increase to 30 per cent the proportion of land and marine areas under protection. Currently these stand at 17 per cent, which is equivalent to 20 million square kilometres (slightly less than Canada and the United States combined) for land surfaces. While only 10 per cent of the seas is under protection.
"The 30 per cent figure is ambitious – David Ainsworth, spokesperson for the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which organises the Cop 15 in Kunming, explained to the newspaper Le Monde – but it is also well-considered. Over the course of a year, our experts analysed the requests of governments, the scientific information available, and consulted civil society. The decision was then discussed and a consensus on the numbers was reached."
In particular, of that 30 per cent, 10 per cent should consist of "absolutely protected" zones, meaning those in which "no human activity, such as fishing or agriculture, even if regulated, can be accepted", Ainsworth added.
Cop 15 is also expected to "formalise" the link between climate change and biodiversity loss. The aim is in fact to impose a direct reference to the Paris Agreement in the texts to be approved in China. Among the United Nations proposals is also a reduction of at least 50 per cent in pollution caused by pesticides, plastic waste and other substances, to be achieved by 2030.
Ahead of the Kunming summit, numerous preliminary sessions will be held. The hope is that what happened at the Cop 25 on climate change does not recur — namely that certain nations, as in the case of Brazil, dig in their heels and attempt to block the agreement. There will be no need, however, to wait for the green light from Donald Trump's United States, since the North American nation is the only country in the world, along with Vatican City, not to have ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity. It will therefore not participate in Cop 15 except as an observer.
