190 countries have agreed to preserve 30% of nature by 2030
It’s been a tumultuous year for the UN Conference on Biodiversity, this year dubbed COP15. The international event brought together delegates from more than 190 countries in Montreal to discuss the steps the world needs to take to save its species and ecosystems, reports ArsTechnica.
The conference was postponed two years due to the pandemic and was originally supposed to take place in the Chinese city of Kunming. Subsequently, it was transferred to Montreal, where the office of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is located. During the conference, there were protests from a group of local anti-capitalists, the withdrawal of representatives of countries concerned about the funding, and many hours during which countries from all over the world discussed the intricacies of how best to conserve biodiversity.
Ultimately, the parties agreed to adopt the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The latter is in crisis: about 69% of wild animal populations declined between 1970 and 2018. The new agreement is designed to reverse this trend.
The Global Action Plan includes four goals and 23 targets to protect biodiversity by 2030. Perhaps the biggest of these goals is the 30×30 Conservation Plan, which calls for the “effective conservation and management” of at least 30% of the world’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems – with greater attention to biodiversity and other vital areas.
On the money side, the Global Plan calls for governments around the world to “phase out or reform” biodiversity-damaging subsidies by at least $500 billion a year, as well as strengthen incentives for sustainable ecosystem use and conservation efforts. Countries also agreed to mobilize at least $200 billion in public and private funding for domestic and international efforts to conserve biodiversity.
In addition, the participants of the agreement agreed that developed countries will increase the financing of developing countries to at least $20 billion per year by 2025, and to $30 billion per year by 2030.