资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Healthy, biodiverse ecosystems sustain life on Earth by providing air, water and other essential elements. From forests to farmlands to oceans, the planet’s ecosystems are the basis of resources, services and industries.

Despite the value nature provides, it is being degraded at catastrophic rates. According to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), 75 percent of the Earth’s land and 66 percent of its oceans have been altered by human activity and many essential ecosystem services are eroding. The rate of global change in nature over the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history.

Nature loss has far-reaching consequences. Damaged ecosystems exacerbate climate change by releasing carbon instead of storing it. Rampant development is putting animals and humans in closer contact increasing the risk of diseases like COVID-19 to spread. A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report found that about 60 percent of human infections are estimated to have an animal origin.

To address these issues, government leaders from around the world will convene in Kunming, China later this year for the UN Biodiversity Conference (also known as the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP-15). They are set to agree upon new goals for nature through the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

“This year’s UN Biodiversity Conference is an opportunity to strike a landmark agreement to guide global actions through 2030 to achieve a nature-positive world, one where society halts and reverses the loss of biodiversity. The world needs to take concrete steps to shift our unsustainable consumption and production patterns to ones that allow both people and the planet to thrive,” said Doreen Robinson, UNEP’s Head of Biodiversity and Land.

In lead up to the event, negotiators met in Geneva, Switzerland for two weeks in March. While a final agreement will not be adopted until world leaders reconvene later this year in Kunming, the Geneva meetings were critical for negotiations on establishing goals and targets that will end up in the final agreement and for supporting the enabling conditions to implement the framework, including financial resources, capacity building, monitoring and accountability systems and other areas.

We spoke to Robinson, who attended the Geneva meetings on behalf of UNEP, about the key elements needed to ensure a robust Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.