The 15th UN Conference of the Parties in Montreal was a historic agreement as it pledged to protect nature from further destruction.
Release Date – 12:30 AM, Wed – 21 December 22
The 15th UN Conference of the Parties in Montreal was a historic agreement as it pledged to protect nature from further destruction.
Hyderabad: Biodiversity worldwide has been declining at rates unprecedented in human history. Nearly a million land and marine species are facing extinction due to human actions. The world is entering a sixth mass extinction due to human greed, including deforestation, burning of fossil fuels and polluting rivers and oceans, scientists have warned. Since 1970, as much as 40 percent of the world’s land has been degraded, and wildlife populations have declined dramatically. The last extinction event of this magnitude was the event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Against this grim backdrop, the agreement just reached at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (UN COP 15) in Montreal is a landmark achievement in global efforts to protect nature from further destruction. Under the Paris Agreement, the historic agreement pledges to gradually increase the level of financial resources from all sources by 2030, mobilizing at least $200 billion a year. Overall, the agreement lays out a set of 23 environmental goals, the most prominent of which is to bring 30 percent of land and sea under protection. Currently, about 17 percent of the planet’s landmass and about 8 percent of its oceans are protected, but activities such as fishing, farming and mining are restricted. Some of the goals contained in the agreement – cutting environmentally “damaging” agricultural subsidies and reducing the risks posed by pesticides – could be contentious and thorny for developing countries.
India has been arguing that global numerical targets to reduce pesticides in the agricultural sector are unnecessary and must be left to countries to decide because a “one size fits all” prescription will not work. Agriculture in India, like other developing countries, is the source of livelihood and culture for hundreds of millions of people, and government support for agriculture cannot be generalized. Tensions over how to fund global conservation proved to be a particular sticking point after four years of tense negotiations, culminating in a deal aimed at stemming biodiversity loss, which could endanger the planet if left unchecked food and water supplies and the existence of countless species in the world. Without a doubt, this is an important time for conservation. Now, the question is whether the deal’s lofty goals will be realized. While there are multiple reasons for biodiversity loss, humans are behind each of them. On land, the biggest driver is agriculture. At sea, overfishing. Other factors include mining, climate change and pollution. This protocol aims to address these drivers. The talks were sharply divided over how to balance the agreement’s ambition with countries’ ability to pay, while calling for a new global biodiversity fund. China, which is leading the talks, and Canada, which is hosting them, have worked to reach a delicate middle ground.
