We have a belated Cop16 agreement to protect biodiversity – but is it enough?

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Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian newsletter

Last week, countries signed off a hard-won compromise on nature finance after marathon negotiations in Rome, finally bringing biodiversity Cop16 meetings to an end. In November, the UN nature summit was suspended in disarray after negotiators ran out of time to complete their work in Cali, Colombia. They needed another meeting in Rome to finish the job.

governments agreed a roadmap to find the much-needed $200bn (£155bn) a year for nature between now and 2030

In Italy, governments agreed a roadmap to find the much-needed $200bn (£155bn) a year for nature between now and 2030, including discussions over a new fund for biodiversity – a key negotiating demand of many countries in the global south. They also signed off indicators against which states will measure their progress in Armenia at the end of 2026.

The few ministers in attendance were quick to frame it as a success. Cop16’s president, Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister, wept at the conclusion of a “historic day”.

Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, said: “Our efforts show that multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty.”

But, in private and increasingly in public, there is growing concern that the 2020s are going to be another decade of failure on nature. Governments have never met a single UN target on biodiversity. The chance of yet another repeat is growing: the 23 targets and four goals agreed on less than three years ago in Montreal are already on life support.

Ahead of talks in Rome, analysis by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found thatmore than half the world’s countries have no plans to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, despite committing to a global agreement to do so in 2022. It is the headline target for this year’s agreement. If large, biodiverse countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela do not implement it, the global target will not be met.

Subsidies that drive global heating and destroy nature have continued to rise despite a target to reform $500bn of the most harmful by the end of the decade

Subsidies that drive global heating and destroy nature have continued to rise despite a target to reform $500bn of the most harmful by the end of the decade, according to a report by Earth Track last year. Only Brazil and the EU were showing signs of action, according to the researchers.

Both are issues that predate Trump and the recent change in geopolitical winds on the environment.

Meanwhile, scientific indicators continue to worsen. Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, according to the latest Living Planet Index. We will get a better idea of progress on other targets at Cop17 next year, but some environment ministers are increasingly speaking up about the lack of progress.

Asked whether enough was being done to reach the overarching ambition of halting nature loss by 2030 by my colleague Phoebe Weston in Rome, Madagascar’s environment minister Max Fontaine painted a bleak picture.

“Honestly, it’s almost impossible when you see the trends of where things are going,” he said. “We are not going in the right direction, we all need to strengthen efforts.”

If we really want to save nature, he said, “there is no other solution than this one”.

Jean-Luc Crucke, Belgium’s climate and ecological transition minister described the Cop negotiations as the “least bad” process. If we really want to save nature, he said, “there is no other solution than this one”. But questions are being raised about its relevance. Ahead of the Rome summit, there were concerns that not enough countries would turn up at the UN nature summit for negotiators to make binding decisions.

Of course, there have been some small victories. In Cali, governments reached an agreement to encourage companies to share commercial profits from discoveries using genetic data from nature through the creation of a voluntary fund, which was launched in Rome. We will have to wait and see how much money the new fund ends up generating. Countries also formally recognised Indigenous communities in the global decision making process on biodiversity.

governments reached an agreement to encourage companies to share commercial profits from discoveries using genetic data from nature through the creation of a voluntary fund

It is not over until it is over. But if there is another decade of missed targets on nature, harder questions will be asked about the utility of negotiating international agreements that countries have no apparent ability or will meet.

 

 

More than half of countries are ignoring biodiversity pledges – analysis

Many of the nations gathering in Rome for Cop16 have offered no plans to honour their agreement to protect 30% of land and sea for nature

More than half the world’s countries have no plans to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, despite committing to a global agreement to do so less than three years ago, new analysis shows.

In late 2022, nearly every country signed a once-in-a-decade UN deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems. It included a headline target to protect nearly a third of the planet for biodiversity by the end of the decade – a goal known as “30 by 30”.

But as country leaders gather in Rome to conclude Cop16 negotiations to save nature, analysis of countries’ plans by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that many countries are will fall short. More than half are either pledging to protect less than 30% of their territory or are not setting a numerical target.

Of the 137 who have submitted a plan, 70 (51%) countries do not include proposals for protecting 30% of their land and sea, and 10 do not make it clear whether or not they will do so. Another 61 countries are yet to submit any plan on meeting the targets.

While the UN target is global, the size of the countries omitting the goal from their plans could put it in jeopardy. Together, they represent 34% of the Earth and include mega-diverse countries with large concentrations of nature such as Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa and Venezuela.

Scientists say that protection must focus on the parts of the planet with the most biodiversity for the 30% benchmark to be effective at slowing the loss of nature.

Finland, a sparsely populated country with a large timber industry, said it was still in the process of finalising its targets, but said achieving 30 by 30 would be extremely challenging. “To reach this target, for example, the protected area in land areas would have to increase by about over 700,000 hectares [1.7m acres] a year,” a spokesperson said.

Indonesia, one of the three major rainforest countries on Earth, did not submit a percentage target. A government spokesperson said it viewed the target as a global aim that should not put an “unnecessarily heavy burden” on countries.

“Managing biodiversity is not an easy task, the balance of economic, social and environmental aspects must be maintained, particularly for developing countries like Indonesia,” they said.

Norway, a country with large fishing, oil and gas industries, has not included marine areas in its 30% target. It said it was still working out which marine areas would count as protected under current UN definitions and would clarify their conservation status once the process was over.

The findings add to growing fears of another decade of international failure on nature. Governments have never met a single target in the history of UN biodiversity agreements, and there had been a major push to make sure this decade was different.

At Cop16 in Cali last year, talks ended in disarray and confusion after the summit ran out of time to agree significant elements of the implementation of this decade’s agreement, and an additional meeting has had to be convened in Rome this week.

Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, said it was clear that countries were not on track to meet the global 30% commitment, adding that the lack of ambition was linked to a lack of finance from wealthy nations to help others meet the targets, and lack of engagement from world leaders.

“Let’s be clear, this is not a ‘nice to have’ target – it is an essential if we are to prevent tens of thousands of species’ extinctions, and maintain the services that intact nature provides like pollination, water and air filtration, storm defence and pandemic prevention,” he said.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said that monitoring figures on protected areas showed that progress was happening, with 17.6% of land and 8.4% of the ocean under some form of protection. But she said much more was needed.

“30×30 is a global target and how countries take that on board at the national level will be different across the world depending on national circumstances. Targets need to help drive action but cannot undermine other conservation efforts or be seen in isolation,” she said. “Without protecting nature, we simply cannot deliver our climate and development goals.”

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