Summary
We are going to close the live blog now. Statements from world leaders have ended, according to our schedule. Thank you for following along. Here is the summary of today’s proceedings in New York at the first-of-its-kind UN summit on biodiversity.
- Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro attacked “international greed” over the Amazon rainforest in a combative address to the assembly, insisting that countries have the right to use their natural resources. “That’s precisely what we intend to do with the huge wealth of resources in the Brazilian territory,” he said.
- Contrary to what some had expected before the talks, Chinese president Xi Jinping did not make a second major announcement on the environment at the summit’s opening. Last week, he surprised observers with a pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 and to ensure China’s greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2030.
- More than 70 world leaders and heads of state have now signed the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, backed by Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson. Signatories encouraged others to agree to the 10-point pledge to clamp down on pollution, embrace sustainable economic systems and eliminate the dumping of plastic waste in oceans by the middle of the century as part of “meaningful action”.
- In a thinly veiled message to China, Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno called on countries to self-regulate their fishing activities in the waters around the Galápagos islands after they were targeted by a vast armada of fishing ships in recent weeks.
- Despite statements from world leaders about the importance of protecting biodiversity, many campaigners were not convinced. Greta Thunberg dismissed “the laughable, cynical empty promises and “pledges” still taking place”. Li Shuo, a Greenpeace climate and energy officer, said statements from world leaders lacked substance.
"Every few years, governments gather to make solemn promises about the action they will take to defend the living world, then break them before the ink is dry."
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 30, 2020
Must read to understand the laughable, cynical empty promises and "pledges" still taking place.https://t.co/fY40fNmKCZ
- Indigenous leaders have warned that plans to protect 30% of the planet by the end of the decade could threaten their people. Youth activist Archana Soreng said it could be the “biggest land grab in history”, while Tuntiak Katan, a prominent Amazon leader, said only through “traditional knowledge can we guarantee the conservation of biodiversity and the reduction in deforestation needed to address climate change”.
Good evening and good night from Patrick Greenfield and Phoebe Weston.
![Coral reef scenery with a Green sea turtle and fusiliersGreen turtle [Chelonia mydas] with a school of Deep-bodied fusiliers (Caesio cuning) in background.](https://media.guim.co.uk/512745872185facb94c7265e96736af2a2be6e5a/0_105_4288_2573/1000.jpg)
“We are the parasites,” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said when describing humanity’s relationship with the planet. “We can go back to a relationship of symbiosis,” he added, saying the delay of the Kunming meeting is an opportunity to scale up ambitions.
Sanchez is focusing on three areas:
- Ensuring 30% of land and sea is protected by 2030
- Restoring 15% of degraded land
- Defending the ‘one health principle’ that recognises the close link between people, plants, animals and their environment
Updated
The Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin tells the summit that the biodiversity crisis is “one of the defining issues of our generation”. A biodiverse planet is essential for humanity, he continues. The global response to restoring nature has to go hand and hand with climate crisis policies, according to the Taoiseach. He says his government will explore an expansion of Ireland’s marine protected areas, adding that his country will use its seat on the UN security council to link human conflict with the environment.
Nepalese prime minister KP Sharma Oli says biodiversity is a “lifeline for us”, helping to sustain human health and prosperity. Living in harmony with nature is part of Nepali culture, he continues. The Himalayan nation has doubled its number of tigers, he tells the summit, adding that his country’s mountain ecosystems help sustain life beyond its borders.
Updated
Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, president of the Maldives, pledged to designate one island, one reef and one mango grove in each atoll as a protected area. The country is also phasing out single-use plastic by 2023. In reference to the coronavirus pandemic he said humanity is “living with the consequences of our constant disrespect to nature”. He added: “If we continue to disrespect the boundaries of the natural world we will continue to face similar or worse catastrophes.”
The Luxembourg prime minister Xavier Bettel said his country was focusing on three areas of action:
- Strengthening the link between science and policy
- Improving multilateral action to better look after rivers and birds and tackle viruses
- Promoting financial systems that encourage investment in the green economy
He said: “I remain convinced that the strength of men and women has always been their ingenuity … let’s draw on this inexhaustible resource.”
Updated
'Self-regulate fishing around the Galápagos islands' - Ecuadorian president
Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno is calling for more financial resources and technological transfers to protect biodiversity as part of the next UN targets. He says his country is one of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet and the protector of the Galápagos islands, “a treasure of Ecuador and the whole world”. In a thinly veiled message to China, Moreno called on countries to self-regulate their fishing activities in the waters around the islands. “We cannot turn our back on nature,” he concludes.
The waters around the Galápagos islands have been targeted by Chinese fishing vessels in recent weeks.
Updated
Indigenous people say their right to land is being violated:
Levi Sucre, leader of the AMPB (Alianza Mesoamericana de Pueblos y Bosques – Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests) said the economic impacts of the coronavirus means reactive policies have promoted further extraction of natural resources and destruction of forests, leading to the violation of indigenous rights. He said:
We, as indigenous peoples and local communities around the world, have been concerned about the taking of forests, incorrectly called development…. the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities protecting forests is crucial to protect this planet from climate change. We call on the international community to cooperate and turn your eyes to the indigenous peoples. This is not just a matter of our life, it is a matter of your life too, and that of the Planet.
Militza Flaco, youth leader of the AMPB said governments are excluding community leaders from public policy and decision-making. She said:
We, the indigenous peoples, in our silent and sustained struggle for centuries and millennia, continue to live in harmony with nature. We are the example of a living ecological culture. Indigenous peoples fight to protect forests every day. We protect water sources as a resource to survive. We were, are and will be, the guardians of the forest.
Photograph: José Jácome/EPA
Updated
“Let me put it plain and simple: without biodiversity there would be no food,” says Qu Dongyu, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The loss of biodiversity undermines efforts to tackle poverty, and to halt biodiversity loss “we need to radically change our economies”, he says.
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions. “Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity,” says Prof David Macdonald, at Oxford University. It is comprised of several levels, starting with genes, then individual species, then communities of creatures and finally entire ecosystems, such as forests or coral reefs, where life interplays with the physical environment.
Without plants there would be no oxygen and without bees to pollinate there would be no fruit or nuts. The services provided by ecosystems are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars – double the world’s GDP. Biodiversity loss in Europe alone is estimated to cost the continent about 3% of its GDP, or €450m (£400m) a year.
The extinction rate of species is now thought to be about 1,000 times higher than before humans dominated the planet, which may be even faster than the losses after a giant meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago. The sixth mass extinction in geological history has already begun, according to some scientists, with billions of individual populations being lost. Researchers call the massive loss of wildlife a “biological annihilation”.
Changes to the climate are reversible, even if that takes centuries or millennia, and conservation efforts can work. But once species become extinct, there is no going back.
Updated
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said his country was striving to be a leader in protecting the environment, surpassing its target of protecting 10% of marine areas by 2020. He is pledging to protect 25% of land and oceans by 2025 (an announcement he made in 2019) with 30% protected by 2030.
The Tuvaluan prime minister Kausea Natano wins the prize for the best video background of the evening.
@TuvaluPM Hon. Kausea Natano addresses the #UN #BiodiversitySummit on behalf of the #PacificIslandsForum, committed stewards of the #BluePacificContinent #PIF @ForumSEC 🇺🇳🇹🇻🌏 pic.twitter.com/zTuoZOBeww
— Tuvalu Mission UN (@Tuvalu_UN) September 30, 2020
Although, if the world does not act on the climate and biodiversity crises, it won’t be there much longer.
Updated
'We must recognise we are not the most important species' - Costa Rican president
Costa Rican president Carlos Quesada is the antidote to Jair Bolsonaro. He tells the summit that humanity must focus on three areas to improve our relationship with nature.
First, we must take responsibility and be self-critical by thinking about how our behaviour affects ecosystems. He advocates for economic development models that are based on human wellbeing, not just growth. Second, humility. Quesada says humans must recognise that we are not the most important beings on Earth and be humble enough to learn from nature. Finally, the Costa Rican president says we must focus on equality by protecting ecosystems and decarbonising economies for the good of everyone.
Updated
Here is the UN secretary general’s speech from the summit opening.
Humanity is waging war on nature.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) September 30, 2020
We need to rebuild our relationship with the natural world - to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis and recharge biodiversity for the benefit of people and the planet.#ForNature https://t.co/nO573PQy9K pic.twitter.com/hv1DJXkN8F
Presidents and prime ministers from Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Zambia, Costa Rica, Georgia, Estonia and Botswana are up next.
We’ll bring you the highlights of what they say. Costa Rica is a small but mighty country when it comes to UN environment negotiations. President Carlos Quesada has been active behind the scenes generating more financial resources for protecting ecosystems and biodiversity.
Updated
The leaders dialogue on addressing biodiversity loss and mainstreaming biodiversity for sustainable development is underway. Statements from Angela Merkel and Imran Khan got us started.
The German chancellor said extinctions are accelerating at a pace never before seen in the history of humanity. She said the world must turn the tide on biodiversity loss by expanding the protection of areas, restoring ecosystems and directing financial resources to protecting plants and animals.
Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, detailed his country’s 12 climatic zones from the peak of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to the tropics on the Pakistani coast. He said his government is dedicated to their protection.
Updated
We are going to take a short break now before the next leaders’ dialogue. It will be chaired by Angela Merkel and Imran Khan on addressing biodiversity loss and mainstreaming biodiversity for sustainable development.
That will begin at 3pm in New York and 8pm UK time.
Updated
Biodiversity in the UK
Prime minister Boris Johnson’s pledge to protect 30% of land in the UK by 2030 has been cautiously welcomed by conservationists. But they warn that targets need to be legally binding to avoid the creation of “paper parks” that fail to safeguard nature in practice.
Johnson announced at a virtual UN event on Monday that an additional 400,000 hectares of land in England would be protected for nature, with the promise of “ambitious goals and binding targets”.
Johnson joined 64 leaders from around the world to make pledges to tackle catastrophic nature lost ahead of today’s summit. The announcement was very welcome but the government overestimates how much land is effectively protected, said Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. Many of the country’s designated wildlife areas are in poor condition and do not support the wildlife they are meant to provide refuge for.
Bennett said:
Our National Parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs) are landscape not wildlife designations, and many of these places are severely depleted of wildlife because of overgrazing, poor management or intensive agricultural practices. Our Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are supposed to be protected for nature but even around half of these are in a poor state and suffering wildlife declines.
In England, 26% of land is protected, but an estimated 5% is being well managed for nature. This existing land needs to be much better protected for the prime minster to deliver on this pledge. “Instead of creating more pointless ‘paper parks,’ the prime minister needs to lay out concrete plans and binding legal targets to halt and begin to reverse the decline of nature on land and at sea by 2030,” said John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace.
The announcement comes after analysis by RSPB found the UK failed to reach 17 out of 20 UN biodiversity targets, because pledges were not matched by action on the ground, resulting in a “lost decade for nature”.
Photograph: David Tipling/NPL/Alamy Stock Photo
We risk another decade of failure unless biodiversity pledges are put into domestic law like Paris climate agreements, said Martin Harper, director of global conservation at the RSPB. “If then properly backed by a reformed systems of farm payments and new dedicated resources for habitat restoration, which would allow places like our national parks to become an engine for nature’s recovery, we’ll then have a fighting chance to revive our world,” he said.
A 2019 State of Nature report found one in ten UK species is threatened with extinction, with 41% of species in decline. Caroline Lucas, MP for the Green Party, said it was not enough to “talk about protecting nature on the one hand then undermine that action on the other”.
Updated
President Jair Bolsonaro has also been hitting back at Democratic candidate Joe Biden about the comments he made about the Amazon in last night’s debate.
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's response to John [sic] Biden's threats last night to sanction and otherwise punish Brazil if it continues to burn the Amazon (posted to Twitter in Portuguese and this, the English version): pic.twitter.com/oVdiuaKMEa
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 30, 2020
Boris Johnson has been addressing the summit.
From the tiniest of plants to the mightiest, most majestic megafauna, the natural life that so enriches our planet today is declining at a pace that is truly terrifying.
Almost 70 per cent of the world’s wildlife has been lost in the past half century – a lifetime to many of us but the blink of an eye in the grand sweep of planetary evolution.
As many as one million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction.
We are on the brink of a world in which the orangutan and the black rhino can be found not in the jungles of Borneo or the savannahs of Africa, but confined to the pages of history books.
And consider the pangolin– that scaly mammalian miracle of evolution boasting a prehensile tongue that is somehow attached to its pelvis.
I don’t believe any of us would choose to bequeath a planet on which such a wonderfully bizarre little creature is as unfamiliar to future generations as dinosaurs and dodos are to us today.
Updated
Combative Bolsonaro pledges to exploit Brazil's 'huge wealth of resources'
The platitudes are over. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro delivered a robust message to the summit: We will continue to take advantage of our environmental wealth. Taking aim at NGOs and foreign governments “interfering” with Brazil’s sovereignty, he rejected “international greed” towards the Amazon rainforest.
Dismissing “unfair” international rules, Bolsonaro said states have “rights to use their natural resources.”
“That’s precisely what we intend to do with the huge wealth of resources in the Brazilian territory,” he said.
The Brazilian leader finished by reminding the summit of the three pillars of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity: conservation, the sustainable use of resources and benefit sharing.
Updated
Dr Alexander Lees a senior lecturer in conservation biology at Manchester Metropolitan University has reacted to the statement from the Polish president:
It was good to hear the Polish president Andrzej Duda’s commitment to preserve its forests, among the most extensive and most important left in Europe. However, let us not forget that the European Commission had to order an emergency ban on logging in Poland’s flagship UNESCO-protected Białowieża Forest, the finest old growth forest left in Europe. Logging activity between July 2015 and June 2018 impacted 4073 hectares of forest and led to a 26% increase in habitat fragmentation. The statement from the president that these forest habitats have been “preserved and multiplied” therefore rings a little hollow. We cannot expect countries in the global south to look after their primeval forest habitats if countries in the global north neglect theirs.
Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez tells the summit that current economic development models have led to unprecedented changes to the planet, including the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. She says Bolivia is among the most biodiverse countries in the world, listing the amphibians, mammals and flora that are endemic to the South American country. Áñez finishes by reconfirming her country’s commitment to multilateralism to combatting biodiversity loss.
🇧🇴 “#Bolivia reaffirms its commitment to preserving biodiversity for the good of humankind. We are calling on the international community to ensure that we are all working together.”@JeanineAnez at UN #BiodiversitySummithttps://t.co/dhdu9rUpav #ForNature #Biodiversity2020 pic.twitter.com/RLEkfRyRMg
— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) September 30, 2020
Please refresh the blog from time to time. We are updating and tweaking posts as we go.
Updated
The meeting has technically adjourned for two hours but due to the quantity of world leaders that want to make a statement, the pre-recorded videos have continued.
We will bring you the most important news lines from speakers and analysis on what has been said so far.
Updated
The summit makes it clear conserving biodiversity improves human well-being. While this may be true on a macro scale, conservation can have real local costs and the tradeoffs are far from simple, says Prof Julia P G Jones, a conservation scientist from Bangor University in Wales. She says:
These challenges occur everywhere. Small-holder farmers clearing forest for agricultural are often made poorer by forest conservation (even if that forest conservation makes sense at the national and international scale)… a major dam might provide much-needed energy, but block rivers, change ecosystems and harm biodiversity.
Those involved in the talks are aware of the challenges faced by countries trying to reconcile conservation and development. Jones argues that these challenges should be more explicitly acknowledged. “This would help the global conservation community move forward more positively post-2020,” she adds.
Updated
"Every few years, governments gather to make solemn promises about the action they will take to defend the living world, then break them before the ink is dry."
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 30, 2020
Must read to understand the laughable, cynical empty promises and "pledges" still taking place.https://t.co/fY40fNmKCZ
The pre-recorded statements from world leaders on nature to the summit have continued.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa says the consumption of wild species and habitat loss are driving pandemics and biodiversity loss. He highlights the “complete interdependence between economic activity and human development. He calls for a change in consumption patterns and land management strategies, implementing sustainable and climate-friendly practises.
Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta says 2020 has given humanity a chance to get back on track with its relationship with nature. Kenya is one of a small number of mega-biodiverse countries, he says, and must make sure it is protected.
Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari refelects on the flora and fauna that are facing extinction in his country.
Brazilian foreign minister Ernesto Araújo – who has previously dismissed the climate crisis as a Marxist plot – had been listed to represent his country in the place of president Jair Bolsonaro but the South American leader will now speak. Governments will listen to what the Brazilian leader has to say with great interest as his stance on the environment could have a major sway over the final Kunming agreement.
Brazil has traditionally been a major player in UN environmental circles through its impressive diplomatic machine. But under Bolsonaro, the Amazon rainforest continues to burn and many fear Brazil’s leader is steering his country towards environmental ruin.
Last week the president hit back at the UN general assembly for a second year in a row about how the Amazon has been treated under his leadership, claiming Brazil was the target of a “brutal disinformation campaign”.
Updated
Greenpeace has created ice sculptures of presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro to expose the urgency of the nature crisis and the failure of both administrations to address the issue. Activists placed the sculptures on the pier facing the UN building where the meeting would have taken place.
The message reads; “Faces of Extinction: Fuelling a planet in crisis”.
“Trump and Bolsonaro administrations are the faces of extinction as they are pushing radical agendas that are destroying nature, driving biodiversity collapse and exacerbating the climate emergency,” said Arlo Hemphill, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace US.
Jair Bolsonaro will address the summit shortly.
Updated
The presidents of Colombia and Peru have just given statements to the summit. Both are major players in UN biodiversity circles and signatories to the Leaders’ Pledge on Nature, which over 70 governments and heads of state backed before today’s talks.
Colombian leader Iván Duque urges other countries to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, embrace nature based solutions and make changes in the industries that have the biggest economic impact.
“That is the challenge of our age,” he concludes.
Peruvian president Martín Vizcarra Cornejo echos calls from other leaders for multilateralism and cites several local examples of how Peru has taken action to protect its biodiversity.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan makes a pointed remark about being at the forefront of fighting climate change, despite his country bearing “negligible responsibility for historical emissions”. He also says Turkey is working on a biodiversity roadmap to to 2050 without giving concrete promises about what landmarks will be involved.
Polish president Andrzej Duda boasts about the country’s “centuries-old heritage of nature conservation”, saying the wealth of the country’s forests – which cover 40% of its landmass – have been “preserved and multiplied”. He says protection of biodiversity is “one of the biggest challenges for civilisation” and talks passionately about the size of the country’s bison population.
Updated
Guardian columnist George Monbiot has written about the UN summit and the biodiversity pledges by world leaders.
It’s the hope I can’t stand. Every few years, governments gather to make solemn promises about the action they will take to defend the living world, then break them before the ink is dry. Today, at the virtual UN summit on biodiversity, they will move themselves to tears with the thought of the grand things they will do, then turn off their computers and sign another mining lease.
Ten years ago, at the last summit, world leaders made a similar set of “inspirational” promises. Analysis published a fortnight ago showed that, of the 20 pledges agreed at Nagoya in Japan in 2010, not one has been met. The collapse of wildlife populations and our life-support systems has continued unabated: the world has now lost 68% of its wild vertebrates since 1970. It sounds brutal to say that these meetings are a total waste of time. But this is a generous assessment. By creating a false impression of progress, by assuaging fear and fobbing us off, these summits are a means not of accelerating action but thwarting it.
No one will be surprised to hear that the promises Boris Johnson has made at this week’s summit are worthless. But you might be surprised by how cynical they are. One of his pledges is that 30% of the UK’s land will be protected for “the recovery of nature” by 2030. This sounds astonishing, in one of the most depleted nations on Earth, until you discover he considers that 26% of our land is already used for this purpose.
Read the full piece here.
French president Emmanuel Macron has given the pick of the early statements. He says that environmental agreements must be coherent. He cites the example of the European Union not signing a trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – the bloc known as Mercosur – over fears it would cause more deforestation in the Amazon. He says that 2021 must be “a year of action”.
Before that, Malawian president Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera spoke on behalf of the Least Developed Countries group. He expressed his dissatisfaction at the world’s failure to meet any of the previous decade’s biodiversity targets and called for more financial resources and technological support for conservation efforts.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, reaffirmed her commitment to the Kunming process.
Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is up next.
#HappeningNow
— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) September 30, 2020
“Our aim is a new global biodiversity framework in Kunming next year. Rules that protect species, our resilience. You can count on my commitment”
--@vonderleyen @EU_Commission 🇪🇺 at UN #BiodiversitySummit
🔴https://t.co/dhdu9rUpav#ForNature #Biodiversity2020 pic.twitter.com/wm4of1Z2k0
Updated
For all the talk about the importance of this summit, the secretary general António Guterres has left because of prior engagements.
Updated
More than 130 organisations including Friends of the Earth International, Survival International and Indigenous Environmental Network have signed a letter criticising the biodiversity summit for not representing communities who are most affected by the destruction of nature and who also play an important role in preserving it.
The letter, from the CBD Alliance, says indigenous people, local communities, women, youth, indigenous farming systems and small-scale food producers are not adequately represented at the summit. It criticises the UN for providing a a prominent role to corporations and financial actors who are responsible for biodiversity destruction.
The letter states:
We remind states that they have obligations to protect biodiversity, but also they must ensure the realisation of human rights. This requires them to ensure effective participation of people and communities as rights holders and to ensure accountability of states regarding their commitments.
Statements by world leaders and governments have just started with the Guyanese president Mohamed Irfaan Ali.
The president of the 75th UN general assembly, Volkan Bozkır, tells the summit that world leaders have not stuck to the time limits on pre-recorded statements about biodiversity and, as such, there won’t be time to play them all.
We will bring you the highlights.
Updated
Increasing protected areas could be 'biggest land grab in history' – indigenous activist
Protecting at least 30% of land and sea is the headline target of the draft Kunming agreement for the next decade’s biodiversity targets. But Indian indigenous youth activist Archana Soreng has warned that it could be the “biggest land grab in history”.
Removing indigenous communities from their land to protect nature is “colonial and environmentally damaging”, the member of the Khadia tribe continues, warning that human rights could be abused en masse in the name of conservation if world leaders are not careful with how the implement protections.
Nurture indigenous practices, empower indigenous communities, respect our rights over land and forest. Removing us from our land to protect biodiversity is colonial & damages biodiversity - Youth representative Archana Soreng @UNBiodiversity #Biodiversity2020 #BiodiversitySummit pic.twitter.com/vaIHHC6JSP
— IISDRS (@IISDRS) September 30, 2020
Here is an infographic of a recent study about increasing protected areas.
Updated
Prince Charles is speaking as we get towards the end of the introduction, telling the summit he was immensely flattered to be invited. The Prince’s comments are focused on what he calls a “blue-green recovery”, talking of an urgent need to embrace circular economics with a Marshall plan for nature. Establishing functioning carbon markets, developing carbon capture and storage, and creating a market for ecosystem services are all key, he says.
“We are at the last hour. We know what we need to do. Let’s get on with it,” the Prince concludes.
Check out that bookcase.
Implement effective & equitable carbon pricing or polluter pays principle to accelerate decarbonisation by changing behaviour of consumers, businesses- HRH Prince Charles, listing 6 levers to protect biodiversity @Charles_HRH @UNBiodiversity #Biodiversity2020 #BiodiversitySummit pic.twitter.com/itSmQPlbIO
— IISDRS (@IISDRS) September 30, 2020
Updated
A “fireside chat” (without a fire) is taking place between the UN biodiversity head Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, UN environment head Inger Andersen and IPBES chair Ana María Hernández Salgar.
IPBES is the biodiversity equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), informing the political process on global negotiations. Ana María Hernández Salgar says that governments, the private sector, academia and industry must come together on responding the biodiversity crisis.
“We have to learn to embrace a different vision of what a good life is,” she says.
Mrema underscores that progress has been made in some countries on biodiversity around the world and that there is lots of evidence that conservation works, preventing some extinctions.
Andersen says “there was a time we thought we could pollute our way to wealth” but that is now over.
Updated
The Leaders' Pledge for Nature
Ahead of the summit, more than 70 world leaders announced a 10-point plan – the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature – to halt the destruction of biodiversity on Earth. The commitments include a renewed effort to reduce deforestation, halt unsustainable fishing practices, eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies and begin the transition to sustainable food production systems and a circular economy over the next decade.
The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is NOT the UN biodiversity agreement that countries are negotiating for the Kunming process. While Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson all backed the commitments, key leaders like Xi Jingping, Jair Bolsonaro, Scott Morrison and Vladimir Putin have so far kept their pens in their pockets. That said, the declaration might encourage countries to agree a more ambitious set of UN targets for next decade.
But as environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg points out, we have been here before.
It's so easy to pledge. Everyone wants to save nature and save the climate. When it comes to real action however, they fail every single time.
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 29, 2020
But go ahead, surprise us! Let's see who will pull the emergency break and put nature, climate and people first.https://t.co/H3qHyrcT4x
President Xi Jinping: "We need to respect nature, follow its laws and protect it”
Unlike last week, Chinese president Xi Jinping has not made another major announcement on the environment.
“Little by little, grains of soil pile up to make a mountain,” he tells the summit, encouraging world leaders to strike a bold international agreement on biodiversity next year in Kunming at COP15.
The Chinese leader highlights the accelerated extinction of species around the world that poses a risk to human survival and development. He tells the summit that humanity must aim to turn the planet into a “beautiful homeland”.
“We need to respect nature, follow its laws and protect it,” Xi continues, balancing development while upholding multilateralism as “passengers in the same boat”.
As the host country of COP15, Xi Jinping tells world leaders that China stands ready to share its experience of protecting biodiversity and says the goal of the Kunming agreement is to seek modernisation alongside harmony with nature.
The Chinese leader concludes by mentioning last week’s commitments to reducing future carbon emissions and the pledge to reach carbon neutrality before 2060.
Updated
In a pre-recorded statement, Egyptian president Mohammed Al-Sisi tells the summit “we have to stress the link between biodiversity and sustainable development”. At COP14 in Egypt, governments began the process of negotiating the biodiversity targets for the 2020s. Last decade, the world failed to meet a single one of the targets agreed in Aichi in 2010. Covid-19 has strengthened our shared responsibility to the planet and future generations, he concludes.
Xi Jinping is about to speak.
Updated
Munir Akram, President of the Economic and Social Council, is addressing the summit right now, calling for a re-imagination of GDP and nature’s role in human wealth.
Egyptian president Mohammed Al-Sisi, who was host of the biodiversity COP14, is up next.
UN head Guterres: 'Humanity is waging war on nature'
UN secretary-general António Guterres continues the sombre tone of the summit’s opening, outlining the poor state of life on Earth.
“Humanity is waging war on nature”, he declares, underscoring the importance of protecting biodiversity to the Paris agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. Guterres links biodiversity to human health, livelihoods and economies.
Guterres says there are three priorities for governments to aid the recovery of the natural world. First, nature-based solutions must be in all Covid-19 economic recovery plans for governments, investing in forests, wetlands and oceans. Second, nature must be included in a country’s measure of its own wealth, he says. Biodiversity must be a criterium in financial decision making, helping financiers to shift from the destruction to the recovery of nature, Guterres tells world leaders. Third, the world must agree ambitious targets to protect biodiversity through the Kunming agreement that will be signed in China later next year.
Read more about those draft targets here.
Updated
What will President Xi Jinping tell the summit?
China is leading global talks on a major UN environment agreement for the first time with negotiations on biodiversity targets for the next decade. Today’s summit was meant to be the moment that world leaders gave their input before negotiators headed to Kunming to thrash out the “Paris agreement for nature”. The pandemic has delayed proceedings but repeated warnings linking the pandemic with the destruction of ecosystems and species appears to have focused minds at the highest level.
Some privately suspect that president Xi Jinping will surprise world leaders with another major environmental commitment during his speech at the summit’s opening, just days after he ramped up China’s carbon commitments by pledging to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. He will address world leaders in the next hour or so.
Ahead of today’s summit, Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which informs the UN biodiversity negotiations with the latest science, told me China’s role is “absolutely critical”.
Read his full comments below.
Volkan Bozkır begins the summit with a grim summary of the state of nature on planet Earth, underlining the link between zoonotic diseases and biodiversity loss.
“Clearly, we must heed the lessons we have learned and respect the world in which we live,” he says, calling for “urgent action” from world leaders. He tells the summit that so many presidents and prime ministers wanted to speak today that he has organised two spillover events so all the messages can be heard.
Secretary general António Guterres is up next. Then, the Chinese president Xi Jinping.
Talks are just about to begin. If you would like to watch along, follow the link below. The president of the 75th UN general assembly, Volkan Bozkır, will get us started.
📢STARTING NOW: The 1st ever @UN #BiodiversitySummit
— UN Biodiversity (@UNBiodiversity) September 30, 2020
The @UN_PGA is bringing together Heads of State and Government under the theme of 'Urgent action on biodiversity for sustainable development'.
🔴Watch LIVE ➡️ https://t.co/WTokSN1kq5#ForNature #Biodiversity2020
Updated
World leaders to discuss biodiversity crisis
Good afternoon, I’m Patrick Greenfield, a biodiversity and environment reporter at the Guardian. Alongside my colleague Phoebe Weston, I’ll be live blogging proceedings from a first-of-its-kind summit at the UN in New York, where world leaders will discuss the rampant destruction of the natural world.
The talks come as the international community negotiates a set of biodiversity targets for the next decade, which the UN’s biodiversity head Elizabeth Maruma Mrema has called humanity’s last chance to reset its relationship with nature. Last decade, the world failed to meet a single target set at previous talks.
Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern are among more than a hundred prime ministers and presidents who will address the event. We’ll guide you through proceedings that will begin at 10am EST (3pm BST) with an address from the president of the 75th UN general assembly, Volkan Bozkır.
As well as reporting on the discussions and speeches from world leaders, we will bring you expert reaction and analysis from scientists and campaigners. Please post questions in the comment section below or tweet us at @pgreenfielduk or @phoeb0. We’ll try to get to as many of your questions as possible but we can’t promise we’ll answer everyone.
Here is the agenda:
10:00-10:50 EST (3pm BST): UN secretary general António Guterres, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Prince Charles are among the many dignitaries that will make statements to open the summit.
10:50-13:00 EST (3:50pm BST): World leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Muhammadu Buhari and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will make statements to the assembly.
15:00-16:15 EST (8pm BST): Leaders dialogue chaired by Angela Merkel and Imran Khan on addressing biodiversity loss and mainstreaming biodiversity for sustainable development.
16:15-17:30 EST (9:15 BST): Swedish deputy prime minister Isabella Lövin will then host a dialogue on harnessing science, technology and innovation for biodiversity with industry heads.
17:30-18:00 EST (10:30pm BST): Closing segment.
The international politics of biodiversity are complicated. If you want to know more about what to look out for in today’s summit, please read my explainer.
For hundreds of thousands of species threatened by extinction, the stakes of this summit could not be higher. Vast expanses of life-sustaining ecosystems that undermine the fabric of human civilisation are disappearing and this month, the drumbeat of studies and reports highlighting humanity’s destruction of nature is growing louder and louder. Around a million species are at risk of extinction, driven by deforestation, pollution, agriculture and the climate crisis. On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to ZSL and WWF analysis.
We’ll let you know what world leaders plan to do about it throughout the day.
Updated
