Negotiators from 196 countries are in Montreal for the next 14 days, where they're expected to hammer out an agreement nature experts say could be the earth's last-gasp attempt at survival.
But even before the COP15 UN nature talks officially opened Tuesday afternoon, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary for the UN convention on biodiversity, was warning things were already off course.
Nature can help prevent devastating losses due to climate change, not just by absorbing more of the carbon dioxide that is contributing to global warming, but also by reducing the impacts of extreme weather. The post-2020 biodiversity framework sets out 22 targets to be met by 2030 in a bid to stop the decline of ecosystems and to begin to restore habitats and species.
The target was discussed at a meeting in Kenya in June, but Guido Broekhoven, head of policy at the World Wildlife Fund International, said negotiators didn't even get to talk about it during the pre-COP15 talks.Canada has its own goal of protecting 30 per cent of land and coastal marine areas by 2030 and has reached about 14 per cent of both already. Globally about 16 per cent of land and inland waters are under some level of protection, and about eight per cent of marine and coastal areas.
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