The UN conference, COP 15, which opens this Wednesday in Canada aims to adopt a global framework to halt biodiversity loss by the end of the decade. At stake is the ambition to seal a historic agreement comparable to the Paris climate agreement.
It is a major world summit that opens this Wednesday in Montreal, Canada. Another COP, much less publicized than the annual UN high masses on climate, but just as crucial for the survival of humanity. The COP 15 on biodiversity, initially scheduled to take place in Kunming, China in 2020 but postponed several times due to the global pandemic, and finally hosted more than 12,000 kilometers away, has a major challenge: nothing less than to stop the crisis of life.
For a little less than two weeks, 196 "parties" (195 countries plus the European Union) will try to agree on an unprecedented roadmap to protect biodiversity: a global framework for the next ten years that makes it possible to halt its decline and initiate ecosystem restoration. And even go beyond, by specifying the vision for 2050 which is to "live in harmony with nature".
Even if no head of state or government has been invited by the Chinese presidency of COP 15, this major meeting raises strong hope. "We are at a COP 21 moment of biodiversity," explains Sébastien Treyer, director general of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), referring to the historic agreement to limit global warming signed in Paris in 2015. An ambition carried high in particular by France.
In the midst of climate COP 27 last month in Egypt, the main architects of the Paris Agreement urged countries to conclude an equally historic global agreement on nature in Montreal. With a clear message: the climate and biodiversity crises are interconnected, "the world can only achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 if it also acts now to create a nature-friendly society".
The challenge remains major, in a turbulent geopolitical context. None of the objectives set in the two previous agreements, in 2002 and 2010, have been achieved. "We lost two decades," said Véronique Andrieux, WWF's director general. This time, "failure would be a breach of the most essential duties of protection," she warns.
The executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Maruma Mrema, chose to be optimistic. "Biodiversity must succeed," she says. "It is not too late", even if the world is close to "tipping points" and the erosion of life has reached "an unprecedented level in history", to the point of speaking of a sixth mass extinction.
A healthy nature
The picture drawn up by IPBES, the "IPCC of biodiversity", and by environmental associations such as WWF, is alarming: more than one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, a decline of nearly 70% in vertebrate wildlife populations in less than 50 years, and more than three-quarters of the terrestrial environment and 66% of the marine environment degraded by human activity.
"We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life around the world," IPBES Chair Robert Watson said when he released a seminal report to policymakers in 2019. It has led to the beginning of awareness, especially among businesses, as more than 50% of the global economy depends on the "services" provided by nature – a healthy nature. Many are making the trip to Montreal this year as part of the world of finance.
Friction
Because "to be effective, this roadmap negotiated at COP 15 will have to involve all the actors concerned: cities, regions, local communities, indigenous populations, businesses, NGOs, trade unions, etc.", raises Julien Rochette, a specialist in international biodiversity governance. "The collective ambition must be able to be translated into individual actions. And each country will also have to develop its own trajectory. »
In Montreal, countries will have to negotiate more than twenty objectives to be met by 2030, and there are many points of friction. The preservation of 30% of land and seas is the most emblematic "target". More than a hundred countries and the EU support it. They will also have to find a consensus on reforestation, restoration of degraded environments, the fight against invasive species, and the reduction of pesticides or agroecology. The rights of indigenous peoples and the recognition of their role will also be at the heart of the discussions. The now very sensitive issue of funding from North to South will also be central. To determine the outcome of the summit.
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