A day after negotiators reached a landmark biodiversity agreement, the pressure was already growing on countries, business leaders and the environmental community to deliver on its ambitious promises to protect the planet—and not repeat the failures of past deals.
A day after negotiators reached a landmark biodiversity agreement, the pressure was already growing on countries, business leaders and the environmental community to deliver on its ambitious promises to protect the planet—and not repeat the failures of past deals.
Delegates expressed optimism Tuesday in Montreal that this time will be different, mostly due to greater financing provisions in the global biodiversity framework and stronger language around reporting, measuring and verifying progress by nations. There is also growing public awareness about threats facing rainforests, oceans and other ecologically important areas.
«We’ve seen unprecedented mobilization for biodiversity protection,» Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said at the closing press conference of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference. «The fact that Canada, the EU and many others would agree to double by 2025 and triple by 2030 our funding is a clear sign.»
The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of the world’s land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.
The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework asks for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.
The challenge now will be making good on those commitments.
The new framework «is the equivalent of simply agreeing on the ‘to-do list’—now the hard work must begin to ensure it gets done,» said Terry Townshend, a Beijing-based fellow for the Paulson Institute, which had previously estimated the annual shortfall in biodiversity funding to be around $700 billion.
The last time around, countries failed to fully achieve any of the targets in the previous 10-year agreement and only partially achieved six by 2020.
