About 200 countries agreed, on Friday night, Saturday, on two main texts to protect nature during the “United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP17)” in Armenia, after two weeks of arduous negotiations that showed continued disagreements on a number of thorny issues.
Applause rose shortly after the opening of the closing night session, when the Armenian Minister of Environment, Hambardzom Matevosyan, announced the approval of two important texts on which compromises had been reached. The minister, who seemed satisfied, said: “The matter is accomplished.” excellent". Details of the decisions taken by about 200 countries participating in the conference were not immediately announced, according to Agence France-Presse.
But the enthusiasm that prevailed at the beginning was quickly replaced by sometimes heated discussions, and settlements were reached after long rounds of debate, while progress remained limited on some files.
COP17 concluded at approximately 10:20 am (06:00 GMT), while a large number of participants had left to catch their flights.
Subsidies harm nature
The first text approved constitutes a “global assessment” of the “Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Agreement” concluded in 2022, which is equivalent to the “Paris Climate Agreement” in terms of importance.
The agreement sets 23 goals to be achieved by 2030, including protecting 30 percent of land and oceans, combating pollution, and restoring degraded ecosystems. However, almost all of these goals are behind schedule.
The text approved during COP17 aims to put countries back on the right track to achieve these goals.
“The text is neither enthusiastic nor detailed, but the fact that countries can reach an agreement is good news,” said Katherine Wheeler, from the non-governmental organization Fauna & Flora.
The draft document called on countries to “accelerate” their efforts, and also stressed, in various forms, the need to “strengthen measures” to address the root causes of biodiversity loss.
The negotiations witnessed intense discussions regarding financial support and other incentives for activities harmful to nature, such as oil exploration and extraction.
Anne Lambrechts of Greenpeace told Agence France-Presse, “Even if the final decision addresses the issue in relatively weak terms, we have sensed significant political momentum regarding harmful financial incentives, including subsidies.”
As for the second text that was approved, it deals with financing, specifically the issue of who should bear the cost of achieving the financial goals set for the year 2030, which is a thorny issue at a time of deterioration in financial conditions in various parts of the world.
During the Conference of the Parties, the European Union sought to persuade major economies, especially China, to join the official list of donors, which has not been updated since 2006.
The draft document proposed that countries could voluntarily declare their interest in being included on this list.
In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse, French Minister of Environmental Transition Monique Barbeau said that the results of the conference “do not rise to the level of the challenges.”
“The progress we have not been able to make here represents missed opportunities to accelerate our response to declining biodiversity,” she said.
The next conference is in Ecuador
Efforts to revive the Cali Fund, a UN mechanism that aims to require companies that exploit genetic data from plants and other organisms to pay up, have faced significant difficulties.
Pakhi Das from the non-governmental organization “Planet for the Planet” said, “Postponing basic decisions related to the mechanism of the fund’s work until 2028 has practically ensured that the parties will remain empty until then.”
The summit also witnessed sharp tensions over the scientific foundations on which global nature protection policies are based, as several countries were accused of seeking to weaken them.
Swiss delegate Gabriela Blatter, speaking on behalf of 56 countries, said she “regrets the increase in cases in which doubts are raised about scientific data and its consideration, or obstacles are created to relying on it” during political negotiations.
“It was not expected to reach strong commitments on some of these most difficult issues,” Astrid Schoemaker, head of the United Nations Department of Biodiversity, said during a press conference after COP17. But she praised what the participants had accomplished, saying that they had achieved “very remarkable things at a time when it is assumed that multilateral cooperation no longer works.”
State representatives in Yerevan also decided that Ecuador would host the next session of the Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity in 2028.
Two informed sources said that an informal poll conducted by the United Nations Security Council, today (Friday), showed that former Costa Rican Vice President Rebecca Greenspan has increased her lead as a leading candidate in the race to run for the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations. If she wins, she will become the tenth person to hold this position.
Greenspan received 11 votes in favor compared to four votes against in the 15-member council, recording her strongest result in seven closed balloting rounds conducted during the past months to choose a successor to Antonio Guterres, whose second five-year term in office ends this year.
The winner will have to deal with multiple crises, including several wars, reductions in contributions to the United Nations from the United States, and a decline in the political standing of the international body consisting of 193 member states after Washington withdrew from dozens of its affiliated organizations.
Obtaining the council’s recommendation requires a formal vote, which is expected to be held as soon as one of the candidates shows a strong chance of winning, provided that he receives at least nine favorable votes and does not receive any “discouraging” votes from the five permanent members, France, Britain, the United States, Russia and China. Friday's poll did not show how these five countries voted.
Five out of six polls conducted in recent months showed Greenspan, 70, with a slight lead, while one poll in August put Guyana's ambassador to the United Nations, Carolyn Rodriguez Birkett, in the lead.
Today, Friday, Rodriguez Birkett received eight supportive votes, coming in third place, while Argentine Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came in second place with nine “encouraging” votes.
Today also witnessed the first poll since Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibeh entered the race, but the Middle Eastern candidate and former ambassador to the United Nations came in fourth place after receiving seven supportive votes, six opposition votes, and two “no opinion” votes.
When Guterres was chosen in October 2016, the council needed six polls to reach consensus.
No woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations in more than 80 years of its history.
The Costa Rican economist said in a previous interview with Reuters that the United Nations has become very cautious and that its next leader must be prepared to bear the cost of diplomatic failure and try again.
