Efforts to draft an ambitious global agreement on halting nature loss ended on Sunday with little progress made in the Nairobi negotiations, leaving limited time for brokering a biodiversity pact this year.
About 1,000 negotiators from 150 countries were supposed to finalize a new draft agreement on protecting nature and wildlife, which would then be considered for adoption at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada, in December.
However, by Sunday’s closing, the delegations had agreed on the wording of only two of more than 20 goals, with much of the draft document still riddled with brackets — signaling a lack of consensus.
Photo: AFP
“There is a significant amount of work in front of us … a lot more than what we thought,” said meeting cochair Basile van Havre of the Canadian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
Some environmental groups said they thought some delegations were becoming less ambitious from meeting to meeting.
“Previous proposals have [since] been weakened; commitments are being made more vague and pushed down the road to 2050 instead of 2030,” said Guido Broekhoven, head of policy at World Wildlife Fund International.
For example, parties were still debating whether the agreement should address pesticide use.
Meanwhile, delegates had removed all mention of infrastructure, such as roads, threatening wildlife, Broekhoven said.
Observers worried that the lack of progress in Nairobi would spell failure in Montreal.
“We cannot afford to fail,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
Organizers said they would seek to schedule yet another round of talks before the Montreal summit.
The Nairobi talks had been organized quickly, after March talks in Geneva, Switzerland, failed to make much progress on the draft.
The decision to hold COP15 in Montreal was announced last week, after the Chinese hosts postponed the summit four times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While China will continue to hold the summit presidency, some observers said they hoped the change of venue would boost opportunities for public engagement, and participation by civil society and nonprofit groups.
For example, China does not allow for mass demonstrations.
“You would expect that there are going to be mobilizations from different groups, in particular indigenous peoples,” said Eddy Perez of the nonprofit Climate Action Network in Montreal.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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