What to expect at this year’s UN biodiversity conference: COP15
Baku, December 2, AZERTAC
The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, referred to as COP15, starts next week in Montreal, with governments from around the world coming together to agree, amongst other things, on a new set of goals and targets that will guide global action on nature through 2030, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
While it sounds similar to COP27, the recent UN Climate Conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh, the two meetings focus on different but related issues. COP27 addressed action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to these changes. COP15 focuses on the living world through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) a treaty adopted for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and related issues.
While the biodiversity COP - short for Conference of the Parties - takes place every two years, this year is particularly important as a new global biodiversity framework is set to be adopted. The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will be the first global framework on biodiversity adopted since the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010.
At COP10 in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010, governments set out to meet the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets by 2020, including that natural habitat loss would be halved and plans for sustainable consumption and production would be implemented. According to a 2020 CBD report, none of these targets have been fully met.
196 countries have ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, and 196 countries will need to adopt the framework at the meeting in Montreal.
Acting to address biodiversity loss has never been more urgent. The planet is experiencing a dangerous decline in nature as a result of human activity. It is experiencing its largest loss of life since the dinosaurs. One million plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction.
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