COP10 Wrap: World Governments Reach Biodiversity Agreement
Nagoya conference adopts sweeping new conservation plan and deal to fight biopiracy
by Winnie Bird
Earth Island EnviromentaList
October 29, 2010
Just past 1:30 this morning, a Nagoya meeting hall packed with representatives of 179 countries heaved a collective sigh of relief and burst into a standing ovation. After two weeks of tense negotiations, some deft diplomacy by Japan, and a final meeting that balanced for 8 hours on a razor's edge between failure and success, delegates to the UN biodiversity conference adopted an agreement on access and benefit sharing for genetic resources - and gave the world desperately-needed proof that governments can indeed work together to solve environmental problems. Within minutes, the delegates also adopted a strategic plan for conservation and a deal to secure financing for that plan by 2012.
"We've overcome the curse of Copenhagen," said The Nature Conservancy's Andrew Deutz immediately after the decision was reached.
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The COP10 Shoot-out: Late Inning News
Wednesday, 27 October 2010 10:56
Winifred Bird
THE NEW CBD TREATY IS IN TROUBLE
Awaiting the "High Level" Cavalry
Nagoya - Oct 28, 2010: In brief, COP10 is turning out to be as divided, rancorous and stubbornly deadlocked as feared, especially regarding ABS, the Access and Benefit Sharing sections, which have generated most of the conflict thus far. Everything now awaits the 11th hour appearance of the fabled "political will" as the "high level" delegates arrive and sit down for the final grueling negotiating rounds.
See reference links below for more news on the ground.
Dispatches from the NGO CBD Alliance - http://undercovercop.org/
Eric Johnston's excellent COP10 coverage here.
Japan Times fine COP10 blog here.
Breaking news reports from the Japanese & foreign press here.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 13:21
Biodiversity Hope Faces Extinction
Wednesday, 13 October 2010 14:03
administrator
Upcoming meeting will set out global conservation targets.
Natasha Gilbert
Nature.com
Oct 11, 2010
The golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis) is one of many endangered amphibian species.K. Kitchin, V. Hurst/Photoshot/VISUM/Still Pictures |
The future of the world's biodiversity hangs in the balance as countries convene for crucial negotiations next week in Nagoya, Japan. The 193 signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) pledged eight years ago to cut species loss "significantly" by this year. But studies show that the health of global biodiversity is reaching a crisis point, with extinctions of mammal and amphibian species continuing to rise (see Nature 462, 263; 2009).
Conservation leaders hope that the meeting of CBD nations on 18–29 October will give the green light to a new set of international agreements to help protect biodiversity. These include 20 new ambitions to be met by 2020, such as halving the loss and degradation of forests and other natural habitats, and ensuring that agriculture and aquaculture are sustainably managed (see Nature doi:10.1038/news.2010.31; 2010).
Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 October 2010 14:15
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Japan Addresses Emission Reductions and Biodiversity Protection
Wednesday, 06 October 2010 23:39
administrator
Japan vows on climate bill, biodiversity goal
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's environment minister said on Tuesday he aimed to pass a climate bill soon and forge ahead with plans to launch an emissions trading scheme but gave few clues on how to win help from opposition parties in a divided parliament.
Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto also said a U.N. meeting in Japan this month must agree on a global target to protect the diversity of plants and animals after failure to reach a goal set in 2002 of a "significant reduction" in losses by 2010.
Japan's climate bill, which backs the creation of an emissions trading scheme, was shelved earlier this year and faces an uncertain fate in a divided parliament, where opposition parties can block legislation in the upper house.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 October 2010 23:45
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Sturm und Drang: News on Nairobi CBD Negotiations
The fourteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) convened at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya, from 10-21 May 2010. More than 700 participants attended the meeting, representing governments, UN agencies, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, indigenous and local community groups, public sector research, academia and business. The conclave ended with major conflicts and only minor progress indicating a challenging agenda for Nagoya's COP10 negotiators.
For a full wrap-up report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, click here.
For NGO commentary from the CBD Alliance, click here. For related news reports, see below...
Disagreements remain over biodiversity
Koichi Yasuda
Yomiuri Shimbun
May. 30, 2010
NAIROBI--A preparatory meeting in Nairobi for an upcoming U.N. conference on biological diversity closed Friday after failing to resolve most of the disagreements over a strategic plan to stem the loss of plant and animal species.
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De Boer Resigns: Climate Regulation Foes "Resurgent"
 UN climate chief Yvo de Boer at news conference on eve of Copenhagen conference which ultimately ended in disappointment. Photo: Bob Strong/Reuters |
Yvo de Boer's resignation compounds sense of gathering climate crisis
18 February 2010
How can everything have gone so wrong so quickly? A year ago, the prospects for successful climate change regulation were bright: a new US president promised positive re-engagement with the international community on the issue, civil society everywhere was enthusiastically mobilising to demand that world leaders "seal the deal" at Copenhagen, and the climate denial crowd had been reduced to an embarrassing rump lurking in the darker corners of the internet.
Now there seems to have been a complete reversal. Obama is held hostage by a deadlocked Senate, which will agree to neither domestic climate legislation nor US participation in a new legally binding treaty. Copenhagen was a disaster from start to finish, and even the face-saving Copenhagen accord is winning at best lukewarm support even from the countries that helped draw it up. To add to the sense of crisis, the climate denial lobby is suddenly resurgent.
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CBD Secretariat: National Biodiversity Target Reports
Encouraging: A series of specific meaningful commitments by many CBD signatories
Discouraging: The USA's continuing refusal to ratify the CBD and Japan's vague verbiage
National biodiversity targets for 2010 and beyond 2010
Distr. GENERAL - UNEP/CBD/SP/PREP/3 - 11 January 2010
Note by the Executive Secretary
Introduction
1. In decision VII/30, paragraph 15, while adopting the framework of evaluation of progress towards the 2010 target, the Conference of the Parties invited Parties and Governments to develop national and/or regional goals and targets, and as appropriate, to incorporate them into relevant plans, programmes and initiatives, including national biodiversity strategies and action plans.
2. In response, some countries have adopted or developed national biodiversity targets for 2010 and beyond 2010, while developing or updating their national biodiversity strategies and action plans or similar strategies, plans and programmes, or have adopted targets to complement such strategies, plans or programmes.
3. This note summarizes national biodiversity targets (primarily quantitative), and other relevant targets, for 2010 and beyond 2010, based on the information provided in the fourth national reports and other related information published by countries. This note also covers national targets developed or adopted for the implementation of those targets included in the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and the programme of work on protected areas.
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'The 2010 target will not be met!'
by Jessica Dempsey, Coordinator, CDB Alliance
THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE
Issue No. 231/232 (Nov/Dec 2009)
While there is cause for hope that an international agreement to prevent biopiracy will be realised in 2010, it is clear that the targeted goal of reducing biodiversity loss by the same date will not be met. Rejecting the idea that new economic models that put price tags on nature will convince policy makers to tackle this goal seriously, Jessica Dempsey contends that the way forward is to bring pressure to bear through solidarity with communities fighting for biodiversity and climate justice.
SCIENTISTS convening in Cape Town in October this year confirmed the obvious: the 2010 target of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss will not be met.1 The target, agreed upon by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (April 2002) and subsequently reaffirmed by nation-states attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg that same year, aimed 'to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth'.2
In March of 2009, a so-called 'High Level Working Group on the 2010 target and post-2010 targets' took place in Bonn, Germany, organised and paid for by the German Ministry of Environment (Germany is the current president of the Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP 9) to the CBD). The proceedings from this event stated unequivocally: 'The global biodiversity target will not be reached by 2010!' There is no uncertainty here; we have failed to stop, yet again, the ongoing 'monoculturalism' of the planet.3
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World will miss 2010 target to stem biodiversity loss
World will miss 2010 target to stem biodiversity loss, experts say
Scienceblog.com
11 Oct 2009
The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according to experts convening in Cape Town for a landmark conference devoted to biodiversity science.
The goal was agreed at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity in April 2003. Some 123 world ministers committed to "achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the local, national and regional levels, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth."
"We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 and therefore also miss the 2015 environmental targets within the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to improve health and livelihoods for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people," says Georgina Mace of Imperial College, London, and Vice-Chair of the international DIVERSITAS program, which is convening its 2nd Open Science Conference Oct. 13-16 with 600 experts from around the world.
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Japan's Post-2010 CBD Targets
Post-2010 CBD Targets (Proposal by Japan)
Released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan 7, 2010
1. Vision, Mid/long-term Target (2050)
Enhancing the harmony between human being and nature all around the world, to improve the state of biodiversity from the current level as well as to sustainably increase the benefits of ecosystem services.
2. Mission, Short-term Targets (2020)
To have the following actions taken by 2020, so as to halt biodiversity loss,
(1) To conduct full observations and analyses on the state of biodiversity at global scale and on scientific justification. To make ecosystem services respected in every aspect of human society.
(2) To expand activities for biodiversity conservation, to promote
practical methods for sustainable use of biodiversity and to establish
mechanisms for reducing adverse effects of human activities on biodiversity.
(3) To mainstream biodiversity by ensuring new steps to be taken by various individuals.
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COP10/CBD Developments
