So far, environmentalists doubt that the first-rate conference will have a satisfactory outcome. But they still hope: “Nothing is lost yet.”
Montreal – Negotiations at the World Conservation Summit in Canada are in the pipeline. Most of the participating States are now represented at ministerial level at the Montreal meeting, which is expected to last until Monday. Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) traveled from Germany.
In the texts for a possible agreement many points are still in brackets as unresolved. However, the German delegation said: “We are optimistic that the world community will agree in Montreal to halt and reverse the trend of biodiversity loss.”
Organizers, scientists and representatives of non-governmental organizations hope that the summit will result in a global agreement on species protection, similar to the Paris Agreement on climate protection. One of the main goals is to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and sea areas by 2030. However, there are doubts about the success of this agreement, mainly due to funding differences. A group of developing and emerging countries, led by Brazil, have sometimes even withdrawn from the negotiations in protest.
Conservationists: “No new impetus” conference
“We are viewing current developments with great concern,” said Jörg-Andreas Krüger, president of the German Union for Conservation of Nature. “In the negotiations to date, the initial level of ambition for the global protection and conservation of biodiversity has been gradually lowered. This calls into question the success of the World Conference on Nature.” Ministers must now “give fresh impetus to the conference,” Krüger asked. So far there has been a lack of political will, said WWF’s Florian Titze, but: “Nothing is lost yet.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres had originally called for a “peace deal with nature”. Originally, the 15th World Nature Summit – which is also called COP15 – was supposed to take place in China in 2020. But it was then postponed and divided due to the corona pandemic. A first round of negotiations took place mainly online in Kunming, China in October, now followed by the meeting in Montreal. dpa
