"A Christmas gift to nature - but can become an empty box"

Despite protests from Congo at the last moment, the Chinese meeting chairman rushed to slam the gavel on the table without looking up.

Just like that, the Paris climate agreement was hammered out.

It's about taking the chance when it's given, quite simply. 

After two weeks of tough negotiations in Montreal, there is now a Paris agreement for nature: 30 percent protection by 2030, and by 2050 the extinction must have been stopped.  

Many of the most biologically valuable areas are in the tropics, where many countries struggle with poverty and economic development.

But it is also where the loss of diversity is going fastest.

Missing billions

But just as with the climate, there is a lack of money to go from words to action.

It caused a group of countries to leave the negotiations for a while.

Now the rich countries promise 20 billion dollars a year, and later 30. It is not enough, believe the developing countries, which demanded 100 billion a year.

And the global needs are huge.

An estimate by the researchers at the Paulson Institute has calculated the need at 700 billion dollars a year, an amount that the text from Montreal now set as a target.

It is admittedly less than 1 percent of the world's GDP, but that money is still missing.

At best, 500 billion can be covered by scrapping subsidies for agriculture and some other things that damage nature (fishing subsidies were excluded).

But there are no guarantees that the money will in that case go back to protecting nature. 

There are many questions about what should count as protected, as well as what it means to allow "sustainable use" of natural resources.

And does that mean all countries must protect 30 percent, or is that just a global goal?

In that case, can a single country claim that it should protect less and other countries should protect more?

Didn't succeed before

A Paris agreement for nature?

Commendable, yes, necessary, yes.

But possible?

Doubtful.

The climate negotiations have been going on for 30 years without the emissions even starting to turn down.

Therefore, it seems difficult to believe that international negotiations will save diversity.

Already in 2011, all countries agreed to stop the loss of biodiversity in the Aichi goals, goals that have now been upgraded in Montreal.

But none of the previous 20 goals have been achieved.

More will be required.

Not only national investments but also ways to price nature so that other uses can compete with exploitation.

It could be payment for genetic resources, wilderness tourism or carbon storage, or perhaps pure compensation with "diversity rights" like emission rights.

The World Bank warns that the world's economy could lose over 2 percent already by 2030 as a result of collapsing ecosystems.

And in the long run even more.

But fundamentally, it also requires an understanding that it is man's own survival that is at stake, which the agreement establishes.

And just as with climate change, it's about stopping using nature as both an inexhaustible pantry and as a toilet.