Biodiversity took a front seat at the Cop27 climate summit on Thursday as conservationists, activists and indigenous leaders underlined the crucial need to protect nature in order to ward off the most damaging impacts of climate change.
“Up to a third of the solution to the climate crisis can be done through protecting and conserving nature,” Brian O’Donnell, director of the NGO Campaign for Nature, told RFI in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
He’s leading a global effort to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s lands and oceans by 2030 – a goal that has been endorsed by the G7 – with the priority of respecting indigenous rights and leadership.
Not only will this target help to mitigate climate change – by up to 37 percent, the NGO says – it will also strengthen resilience and adaptation.
Failures
Driving momentum for the so-called 30x30 goal ahead of next month’s Cop15 biodiversity summit in Montreal, experts from Campaign for Nature and the National Geographic Society warned of the need to make biodiversity a central part of the climate agenda.
“Cop15 is the most important nature summit that we’ve had in more than a decade,” O’Donnell said of the event,
“In fact most of the nature targets that the world has set in the past have failed to be achieved, so this is the time for the world to come together, add ambition, add new financial resources and make sure we have a bold global agreement for nature.”
In Montreal countries will seek to develop a global biodiversity framework – a strategic plan for how nature will be conserved.
Leaders absent
While there have been more than 90 heads of state at the climate talks in Sharm el Sheikh, so far no heads of state have been invited to Montreal.
“This is very disconcerting,” O’Donnell says. “We can’t solve the climate crisis without biodiversity action.
“Success in Montreal is critical for future generations. Without heads of state there it makes the possibility of a deal much more challenging.”
