On December 5, 2022, local time, in Montreal, Canada, the light and shadow mural organized by the World World Foundation of Nature began to be put into place. The projection will last three days, from 5pm to 11pm Eastern Time. It shows the current problems and the impact people have on biodiversity . (Visual China/Photo)
"Every autumn, the small Beijing Swift begins to migrate, traveling through 37 countries all the way, and finally arrives at South African Plateau . In the eyes of high-flying birds, the earth is a whole. The countries flying through are not different from size, strength or weakness, rich or poor, and are home."
This scene described in the promotional video of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) fully demonstrates the international community's expectations for biodiversity protection: countries around the world can work together to protect global biodiversity.
Currently humans are standing at the intersection of biodiversity protection . An assessment report by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) shows that one-quarter of the world's species are threatened with extinction and one-third of marine fish are overfished.
The second phase of the COP15 held in Montreal, Canada from December 7 to 19, 2022. The most important expected result is to formulate and adopt the "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework" (hereinafter referred to as the "Framework"), leading the global biodiversity conservation process in the next 10 years and even longer.
html The failure of the "Aichi Goal" 112 years ago (the 2011-2020 global biodiversity conservation target set by COP10 held in Aichi Prefecture, Japan in 2010) warned the international community: the "framework" goals should be both ambition, pragmatic, balanced and accessible, especially innovative implementation mechanisms to avoid the goal becoming a piece of paper.It is in this context that COP15 is highly expected by the international community and believes that it is a conference that cannot be failed. It hopes to become a key node for reversing the downward trend of global biodiversity, just like the "Paris Climate Conference" in the field of climate change.
However, before the opening of the conference, although COP15 had held five "Framework" Unlimited Working Group Meetings (OEWGs) to consult on the text of the "Framework", the progress was slow and could not resolve the many differences between the parties. It can be foreseen that in the next two weeks, representatives of each party will face heavy tasks and sharp contradictions.
consultation progress is slow
htmlOn November 1, Peng Kui, project director of the Institute of Sustainable Global Environment, flew directly from Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt to Montreal, Canada. He had just finished the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) trip to the " United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" , preparing to participate in the second phase of the COP15 meeting.Responding to climate change and biodiversity loss are the two major challenges facing mankind in the environmental field at present. Among them, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity is the international environmental convention with the most signed countries in the world, with a total of 196 parties. The United States is the only United Nations member state to have not yet ratified the Convention.
In October 2021, the first phase of COP15 was held in Kunming, China. At the meeting, the " Kunming Declaration " was passed, which focused on reflecting the political will of all parties. Compared with the first phase of the meeting, the "framework" that will be passed in the second phase of the meeting is the "real sword and gun" negotiation. Due to the impact of the epidemic, the second phase of the meeting was moved to Montreal, the secretariat of the Convention, where China remains the presidency of the Congress.
The reason why Peng Kui arrived in Montreal early was because he wanted to attend the fifth "Framework" Unlimited Working Group Meeting (OEWG-5) held in Montreal from December 3 to 5. According to international practice, in order to reach a "framework", each Party generally holds several inter-meetings before the opening of the General Assembly, repeatedly consult, to form a general text recognized by all parties as much as possible, and then finalize the final details in the General Assembly negotiations.
"framework" negotiations have always adopted a bottom-up approach, and each party can add its own ideas, which has also made the texts formed by the previous four "framework" unlimited working group meetings spread across "brackets", and the content of each "bracket" represents the differences between the parties.
Beijing Green Research Public Welfare Development Center Project Director Xu Jiayi told Southern Weekend reporters that one of the reasons why the consultations on multiple OEWG meetings are slow is that the text framework of the text is too complex and the coverage issues are intertwined, "making it impossible for everyone to start." For example, issues such as aboriginal people and gender appear repeatedly in different clauses, "After all parties finish playing cards on one issue, they have to play the same strategy again in the next clause, which is very cumbersome."
Another reason is the impact of the epidemic. There were not many representatives attending the meeting in the previous OEWG meetings. Although there were some funding support from the Secretariat of the Convention, representatives of some developing countries could not afford the expensive international travel expenses during the epidemic. At the venue, in addition to preparing for the negotiation work itself, the representatives also had to consider whether to wear masks, how to sit down, how to book a hotel, how to fly to the venue when the route was discontinued, etc., which "greatly consumed the enthusiasm for negotiation."
simplified version text is still spread all over "brackets"
In order to speed up the negotiation progress, OEWG-5 has established an informal working group and launched a simplified version text, which has greatly reduced the number of "brackets". However, this simplified version of the text encountered various resistances as soon as it was launched.
Pengkui observed that some parties represented by Panama, Russia, etc. believed that they had neither joined the informal working group nor saw many of the articles that they considered important to disappear in the simplified version of the text, and therefore refused to use the simplified text as the basis for negotiation. As for the presidency of the conference, China, and other parties in the EU, , , Japan, Mexico, etc. insist on using the simplified version of the text as the basis for negotiations.
After repeated discussions, within a few minutes of OEWG-5's temporary recess, all parties finally reached an agreement through informal communication: focus on simplifying the text, and at the same time display the previous formal text.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke University in Kunshan, Coraline Goron, told Southern Weekend reporters that the original intention of OEWG-5 was to further eliminate the "brackets" on the basis of the simplified version of the text. However, due to serious differences between the parties, many deleted content in the simplified text were added again, and hundreds of "brackets" were still retained. The final text was not much cleaner than before. Because of insufficient time, there are even some terms that are not available to discuss at all.
At present, the structure of the "framework" has been basically fixed and it is unlikely that there will be too many changes. The formal negotiations of COP15 will be held on a text covered with "brackets", which leaves huge pressure on the short-term formal negotiations.
Biodiversity targets are difficult to quantify
At present, the many differences in the "framework" are directly related to the difficulty of quantifying biodiversity conservation goals.
The Convention has three major objectives: the protection of biodiversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the equitable sharing of benefits generated by the use of genetic resources . The consensus of the international community is that these three goals should be fully and balanced.
In order to implement the above three macro goals, the "framework" sets four long-term goals that need to be achieved before 2050, including biodiversity conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair benefit sharing, and sufficient means of implementation - financial and technical capacity support.
In addition to the long-term goals, the current "framework" also includes 22 goals that need to be achieved by 2030, covering expanding the area of land and marine protected areas, reducing pollution, ensuring the sustainability of food production, and gradually eliminating public subsidies that are harmful to the environment. The objective also specifically mentions the protection of the rights and interests of indigenous peoples and gender equality.
is different from the single and clear goal of 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees of temperature control in climate change negotiations. The goals of biodiversity negotiations are more parallel - both the direct goal of species and habitat protection, and how to rationally use resources to obtain the Sustainable Development Goals , and how different countries and different groups share the right, fairness and social goals of protecting interests.
"The mixed eyebrows and beards, the blurred models and tools make it difficult to reach an agreement on biodiversity negotiations even where the 'nose' is. This is a natural complexity that parties have to face," Peng Kui said.
For example, one of the flagship goals of the "Framework" is the "30·30" goal, that is, "by 2030, the proportion of protected areas of land and oceans will be increased from the current 15% and 7% to 30% respectively." But if this ambitious goal is broken down to each party, there are great differences between which countries bear more and which countries bear less due to different land areas and different species distributions. "In the process of international governance, it is not that the larger the land area, the greater the responsibility." Xu Jiayi said that it is necessary to comprehensively consider the basic situation of its biodiversity, the current protection status and the development stage.
"For example, most countries in Southeast Asia, India, South America or Africa are the most biodiversity-rich regions in the world, but it is difficult to bear more than 30% of the responsibility, because it will affect the people's livelihood of the country, economic development, and even social stability." Xu Jiayi gave an example, "As a country with a vast territory and rich biodiversity, China can do its best to protect 30% of the land under strong policies such as the ecological red line. However, if it is in some smaller countries, it is difficult to demand that it set such a high proportion of the land as a protected area."
verification and inventory and financial support
The international community generally expects that the "framework" has only ambitious goals, and it is also necessary to innovate implementation mechanisms to ensure that the goals can be effectively implemented.
The "Aichi Goal" adopted by COP10 in 2010 is the world's first 10-year biodiversity conservation target. However, the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook published by the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in 2019 pointed out that at the global level, none of the 20 goals proposed by the "Aichi Goal" have been fully achieved, and only 6 parts have been achieved.
"Aichi Goals" progressed far below expectations, and one of the lessons was the lack of a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the goals by governments. The Framework wants to change this—trying to establish a monitoring system that requires Parties to commit to integrating the Framework objectives into their national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs), and to regularly report on progress.
NBSAPs are similar to Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Global Climate Change Response Mechanism. The latter is a climate change response target determined by each party based on its respective national conditions and development stages. According to the requirements of the " Paris Agreement ", a global inventory will be conducted every five years, that is, the parties update a version of the nationally Determined Contribution targets and progress every five years. What is different from
and NDC is that there are still many differences at present what specific requirements the NBSAPs mechanism needs to put forward. One of the main controversies is whether to conduct regular global verification or “inventory”. Gao Lina said some biodiversity-rich developing countries were worried that the mechanism could turn into a conference that accused them of poor conservation efforts while ignoring the failure of developed countries to provide adequate means of implementation.
This concern is related to the technical and financial support content in the execution mechanism. Xu Jiayi introduced that global verification or "inventory" is a work with certain technical thresholds. Many developing countries do not have the ability to use satellite remote sensing , sensors, drone and other technologies to accurately monitor biodiversity. If it is completely verified by foreign experts, there is a risk of leaking sensitive information such as geography and resources in the country.
In addition, financial support is also another long-standing problem, including the total amount of funds, how to fill the fund gap, the form of funds, how to supervise the use of funds, and whether a new funding mechanism should be established.
Gaolina said that according to current estimates, it is necessary to triple existing investment by at least 2030 and triple by 2050 to fill the funding gap in global biodiversity conservation.
In Xu Jiayi's view, even though the current funding gap is as large as an "astronomical figure", all parties have "the willingness to increase financial support, and their demands are urgent and real." However, due to the global pandemic of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the current economic situation in various countries has increased the difficulty of financial support.
At the first phase of COP15 held in Kunming, China in 2021, China announced that it would take the lead in investing 1.5 billion yuan to establish Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support the biodiversity protection cause in developing countries. At the opening ceremony of the second phase of COP15 held on December 6, 2022, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau announced an increase of 350 million Canadian dollars in funding for international biodiversity governance to protect developing countries, of which 100 million Canadian dollars are used for work related to climate change.
Xu Jiayi said that the capital injections in China and Canada are an increase in confidence in international politics, but they also require the joint efforts of public sector , private sector and social charity departments.
"Vote" unpopular issue
goals and execution mechanisms are the core of the "framework", but there is a slightly unpopular topic that has played an increasingly critical role in global biodiversity negotiations in recent years, and has even become an issue that affects the fate of the "framework" - "digital storage information of gene sequences".
companies can profit from genetic resource data, for example, a biotech company can use this data to develop drugs without actually contacting related species. This means that companies may not comply with the Convention's rules on the equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources with countries of origin.
Gao Lina introduced that the current differences are that developing countries believe that digital sequence information should be understood as part of genetic resources and should be included in the "framework" genetic resource acquisition and benefit sharing mechanism and other regulations. But some developed countries object, believing that the data should be kept open to access. The issue of
has risen to the level of "veto". "Some African countries have repeatedly stressed that if there is no satisfactory solution to the digital storage of information of gene sequences, they will not accept the 'framework'." Gao Lina said that considering the gains and losses of scientific and economic interests, it is unlikely that all parties will reach an agreement. "In this way, the key is whether all parties can first reach a short-term path and thus form a long-term solution." Behind the various sharp contradictions of
, there is a conflict of interests of several contracting parties.
In Gao Lina's view, there are three interest groups in COP15, the European Union, African countries, and the South American power led by Brazil and Argentina. "The three parties have differences in almost every goal." On some specific issues, some countries will still have a very persistent position, and China holds a neutral position. The overall outcome of the COP15 meeting will depend on how the parties weigh the gains and losses in each area.
According to the experience of multilateral negotiations, the last few days of the conference are the fastest and most dramatic stages. "I think all parties are not active enough now. The reason is that the pressure is not too great, and the representation is not tired enough. It may take a wait until next week to compromise." Gao Lina said.
Southern Weekend Reporter Lin Fangzhou
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