23 Former Diplomats Urge Global Leaders to Adopt Paris-Style Agreement to Protect Biodiversity

By Jessica Corbett | Common Dreams

Ahead of government negotiations scheduled for next week on a global plan to address the biodiversity crisis, 23 former foreign ministers from various countries released a statement on Tuesday urging world leaders to act “boldly” to protect nature.

“It is clear to us… that climate change, ecosystem degradation, and the excessive exploitation of natural resources are now threatening millions of species with extinction and jeopardizing the health of our planet,” says the statement. “The loss and degradation of nature jeopardize human health, livelihoods, safety, and prosperity. It disproportionately harms our poorest communities while undermining our ability to meet a broad range of targets set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”

“The world has a moral imperative to collaborate on strong actions to mitigate and adapt to the current climate change and the biodiversity crisis. Ambitious targets for conservation of land and ocean ecosystems are vital components of the solution,” the statement continues. “Humanity sits on the precipice of irreversible loss of biodiversity and a climate crisis that imperils the future for our grandchildren and generations to come. The world must act boldly, and it must act now.”

"Humanity sits on the precipice of irreversible loss of #biodiversity. The world must act boldly, and it must act now"#naturenowhttps://t.co/nuOMMbRiDy

— Friends of the Earth Europe🌍 (@foeeurope) February 18, 2020

A U.N. report released in May 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned that, as Common Dreams reported at the time, “human exploitation of the natural world has pushed a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction—with potentially devastating implications for the future of civilization.”

That report and a growing body of scientific research on rapidly declining biodiversity have led scientists and policymakers alike to raise the alarm about the consequences of not acting ambitiously enough to address what experts have called the “sixth mass extinction.” U.N. biodiversity chief Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told the Guardian last month that humanity risks being left to contend with an “empty world.”

The new statement from diplomats came before the Feb. 24–29 meeting of the Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which was recently moved from Kunming, China to Rome, Italy due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. The event will build on an August 2019 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The third meeting in Cali, Colombia is planned for July.

Those three events will culminate in the adoption of a “Paris-style U.N. agreement” to protect nature at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is still set to be held in Kunming in October. A 20-point draft plan to stop and reverse biodiversity loss worldwide, which will be a focus of the Rome talks, was unveiled last month.

"The #Kunming talks should focus on solving the deeper problems that have hampered the effectiveness of the Convention on Biological Diversity." – excellent and timely piece by @LiShuo_GP. #COP15 #biodiversity https://t.co/O0cI07l5PK

— Jennifer Morgan (@climatemorgan) February 18, 2020