COP15: so far Asia has failed to meet its targets on biodiversity
A study by Oxford University notes that only few Asian countries have met the 2020 targets. Thus, the continent will find it hard to meet the commitments made in Montreal. Chaired by China, the conference ended with an agreement to protect 30 per cent of land and restore 30 per cent of degraded areas by 2030. Clashing with African countries, China opposed setting up a special fund.
Milan (AsiaNews) – The 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ended yesterday in Montreal, Canada, with the signing of a non-binding agreement to protect ecosystems.
Over 190 countries agreed to join the agreement, committing themselves to protect 30 per cent of the planet's lands and oceans, by setting up protected areas, and restore 30 per cent of degraded lands and waters by 2030.
Many other measures are planned, including reducing by half risks associated with pesticide use, cutting the use of plastics, and converting agriculture, fishing, and logging into sustainable activities. Countries are committed to require large companies to disclose their environmental impacts.
Such goals are ambitious, especially compared to previous biodiversity goals for 2011-2020 which were not met.
While the rights of indigenous peoples related to the environment have been officially recognised, the proposal for a special fund to defend biodiversity was not accepted.
The agreement provides for US$ 20 billion in annual aid from developed countries to developing countries by 2025, a figure set to rise to 30 billion by 2030.
Funding from the Global North will go through an existing mechanism, the Green Climate Fund, whose main beneficiary is China.
As the second largest economy in the world, China often adopts a developing country position at international climate conferences when it comes to asking for funds, but in Montreal it opposed African countries that called for a special biodiversity fund.
The Conference was initially supposed to take place in Kunming (Yunnan province), China, but was moved to Canada due to COVID-19.
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke via web link to the opening of the second part of the summit, stating that “the diversity, stability and sustainability of ecosystems in the country have kept improving, and the country found a path of biodiversity protection with Chinese characteristics, effectively boosting global confidence in biodiversity protection.”
While China is one of the Asian countries that met the 17 per cent protection target in 2020 by creating more than 2,600 nature reserves, some studies highlight the persistence of threats to biodiversity in its provinces, especially in the south-western regions.
What is more, several surveys suggest that Asia has had the worst performance in terms of biodiversity protection, with particularly negative results in West and South Asia.
Research by Oxford University published late last month clearly indicates that Asia has failed to meet the 17 per cent goal set by the international community for 2020.
According to the study, “Under current trends, the outlook for achieving the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 2030 target to protect at least 30% of land is bleak, with Asia set to miss this by an even greater margin.”
Asia is home to great varieties of animal and plant life but also more than 60 per cent of the world’s population, which is growing at a faster rate than in the rest of the world.
This will result in increased demand for food and land for farming, which is why experts say Asia will experience the highest rates of habitat loss in the world by 2050.
Such a situation, the Oxford research notes, could be further aggravated by the pressures on biodiversity caused by China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a mega infrastructure project that aims to boost trade between China and the rest of Asia and parts of Europe.
Elsewhere in the continent, Myanmar and Thailand reduced the size of their protected areas between 2010 and 2020; but Indonesia, Cambodia, South Korea, and Japan increased theirs by more than 10 per cent.
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