‘Without nature, we have nothing’: UN chief sounds alarm at key UN biodiversity event
(United Nations New) The UN’s key biodiversity conference, COP15, began on Tuesday in Montreal, Canada, where negotiators will set new targets and goals aimed at arresting the alarming destruction of nature, due by human activity.
The conference is being billed as a major biodiversity COP, because it is expected to lead to the adoption of a new Global Biodiversity Framework, guiding actions worldwide through 2030, to preserve and protect our natural resources.
The delegates and organisers will be hoping that this framework will have a more lasting impact than the previous version: at COP10, in 2010, governments agreed to strive for ambitious targets by 2020, including halving natural habitat loss, and implementing plans for sustainable consumption and production.
However, a UN report released that year, showed that not a single target had been fully met. Meanwhile, the planet is experiencing its largest loss of life since the dinosaur era ended: one million plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction.
The urgent need for action was underscored by UN Secretary-General António Guterres during his opening remarks to the conference on Tuesday.
Global biodiversity is in crisis
One million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.
Watch @UNDP explain what is #COP15 is and why it is important
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— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) December 7, 2022
Noting that “without nature, we are nothing”, Mr. Guterres declared that humanity has, for hundred of years “conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction”.
The UN chief catalogued examples of this destruction, from deforestation and desertification; to the poisoning of the environment by chemicals and pesticides, which is degrading land, making it harder to feed the growing global population.
Read more at: United Nations News
Source: CARICOM TODAY