The main points of the COP15 agreement on biodiversity

This is a victory for biodiversity.

Countries around the world reached a historic agreement in Montreal on Monday to halt its destruction and that of its resources essential to humanity.

“The agreement has been adopted,” said Huang Runqiu, the Chinese president of COP15, during a plenary session organized in the middle of the night, before dropping his hammer to the applause of the delegates.

The principle of a "global framework for biodiversity", namely a roadmap of 23 objectives to try to halt the destruction of nature by 2030, should be put in place.

Five other texts aimed at making this framework applicable, measurable, effective and, above all, at financing the efforts required of developing countries, were also approved.

Here are the main points of the agreement:

30% of the planet protected

This is the key objective of the text: “that, by 2030, at least 30% of land areas, inland waters and coastal and marine areas (…) be effectively conserved and managed”.

This will be done “through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably managed networks of protected areas” and “while ensuring that any sustainable use (…) is fully compatible with conservation objectives.

»

The objective is therefore global and not national, implying that some do more than others, or do more on land than at sea. These 30% are a minimum for scientists and NGOs, who consider that 50% would be necessary.

To date, 17% of the land and 8% of the seas are protected.

20 billion in international aid

The negotiations were marked by a long bargain between the North and the South: more ecological ambitions in exchange for more international subsidies, and vice versa.

In the end, the text endorses the objective for rich countries to provide “at least 20 billion dollars per year by 2025, and at least 30 billion dollars per year by 2030”.

That is about double and then triple the current international aid for biodiversity.

New: the objective is incumbent on “developed countries, and countries which voluntarily assume the obligations of developed countries”, members of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

This formulation makes it possible to integrate the United States, which is not a signatory to the Convention, and opens the way to the integration of China or the Arab States among the donors, hopes the European Union.

COP15 also approves the creation of a new branch of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), dedicated to the application of the Kunming-Montreal agreement: an alternative to the separate fund that many countries in the South are still hoping to obtain. in the future.

Restore 30% of degraded land

A third of land is "moderately or severely degraded" by human activity, according to the FAO.

To remedy this, the text provides “that, by 2030, at least 30% of degraded terrestrial ecosystems, inland seas and coastal and marine ecosystems will be effectively restored”.

Reduce pesticides

A long showdown has pitted the European Union against countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia.

In the end, the agreement foresees to “reduce the risks of pollution and the negative impact of pollution from all sources, by 2030, to levels which are not harmful to biodiversity”.

To achieve this, the signatories must, among other things, "reduce by at least half the overall risk linked to pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals" in particular through pest control, taking into account food security and livelihoods.

Countries must also “prevent, reduce and work towards the elimination of plastic pollution.

»

Framework for implementation

Virtually no objective set in the previous agreement, in 2010 in Aichi (Japan), was achieved at its end, in 2020. Drawing lessons from this failure, the countries adopted a common planning and monitoring mechanism, with specific indicators.

And a possible revision of national strategies, if countries are not on the right path.

But the text is less restrictive than that on the Paris climate agreement.

profit sharing

The agreement would never have been approved without progress on an "injustice" brandished by many countries of the South: the absence of sharing of the profits made by the North with medicines or cosmetic products derived from their biological resources.

These resources have become billions of digitized genetic data, benefiting almost exclusively to research and the economy of rich countries.

Our dossier on biodiversity

The text provides for establishing “a global mechanism for sharing the benefits arising from the use of digital sequence information (ISN/DSI) of genetic resources, including a multilateral fund”.

Planet

Biodiversity: A "cascade" of extinctions threatens animals and plants

Planet

COP15 "biodiversity": Threatened with extinction, dugongs, abalones and corals illustrate the destruction of marine environments

• Planet

• Biodiversity

• Montreal

• Climate

• Canada

• UN