UN COP16 Biodiversity Summit Begins in Colombia

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Facts

  • The latest installment of the UN's biodiversity summit began on Monday in Cali, Colombia, with nearly 200 nations in attendance and around 23K delegates registered to participate.[1]
  • The summit is the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity. The convention was signed in 1992 with the objective of conserving biological diversity and ensuring 'fair and equitable sharing' of utilizing genetic resources.[2][3]
  • The conference is the first since the Kunming-Montreal Global Diversity Framework was signed in 2022, containing 23 targets to be reached by 2030 — including protecting 30% of land and sea area and mobilizing $200B worth of biodiversity solutions.[4][5]
  • Less than half of all signatories have submitted national targets, of which only approximately a third have met a UN deadline to publish plans to achieve these goals. Only five out of 17 nations containing 70% of the world's biodiversity have submitted targets (Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Mexico).[6][7]
  • The US, one of the 17 'megadiverse' nations, is not a signatory of the biodiversity convention, while G7 nations Germany and the UK have not submitted their plans. The UK, alongside over 75 other nations, has provided a technical document called a national target submission.[8]

Sources: [1]Reuters, [2]ECO, [3]CBD (a), [4]CBD (b), [5]Dw.Com, [6]Voice of America, [7]Guardian and [8]Carbon Brief.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by EpochTV. Those in high echelons of power continue to repeat claims of a human-engineered climate disaster as if it were a certified fact. The environment, as it always has, is destined to change and evolve due to a multitude of factors that are often way beyond our wildest understanding — it's inappropriate to suggest otherwise. A more nuanced view of the power of natural complexity is required.
  • Narrative B, as provided by The Nature Conservancy and Sustainable Views. With natural habitats across the world vanishing at a dangerous speed, now more than ever the international community, including both state and non-state actors, must come together and commit to solutions to this environmental crisis. Biodiversity is integral to the Earth's sustainability — without immediate action, it may be too late for this alarming trend to ever be reversed.

Predictions