The Japan Times - UN biodiversity summit opens with nature goals off track

Most countries joined a historic call four years ago to halt and reverse the destruction of nature by 2030 but governments have been slow to act on these pledges.

Many goals of the so-called "Paris Agreement for Nature" are falling behind, including a centrepiece commitment to protect 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans.

Some of the toughest objectives of the pact, such as cutting subsidies for fossil fuels and other powerful industries, have made little progress.

Armenia's Environment Minister Hambardzum Matevosyan, who is presiding over the political negotiations known as COP17, said nations had "a unique chance to correct the course" in Yerevan.

"Over the next two weeks our task will be to bridge the differences, build consensus and ensure that COP17... deliver results commensurate with the urgency of the challenges before us," he said at the summit's opening session.

UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker said that global progress toward the 2030 nature goals "is not yet occurring at the pace and scale needed" and a reset was needed.

"What happens here in Yerevan matters. Billions of people whose lives are being upended by the impacts of biodiversity loss depend on progress being made here in the next two weeks."

The summit is one the largest international events ever hosted in Armenia, a mountainous country in the Caucasus region.

The hosts expect up to 15,000 attendees at different events during the biodiversity summit, which finishes on October 30.

- Threat to survival -

The summit comes at a difficult time, with public finances under strain and political attention fixed on conflicts, geopolitical tensions and a global energy crisis.

Only a handful of world leaders, including UN chief Antonio Guterres but mostly heads of state from nearby Central Asian nations, turned up for a high-level session on Friday ahead of the formal negotiations.

Matevosyan told AFP on Friday that success at COP17 "will not be measured simply by the number of participants, high-level statements or decisions adopted" but whether nations turn pledges into action.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the stakes could not be higher, describing an unrelenting "war on nature" that threatened the very livability of the planet for future generations.

"We need more action, more speed and more will... It is time to ask ourselves -- are we doing enough?" he said on Friday.

A major tension at the summit will be money, with the report finding that the effort to close a yawning gap in necessary finance "falls far short" of what is needed.

European and other wealthy nations obligated to provide biodiversity finance have been pushing for large emerging economies like China to contribute also.

But attention is likely to focus more on how private capital, not public finances, might help plug the shortfall.

A key priority will be encouraging corporations to donate a share of profits to a near-empty UN fund to support conservation in developing countries.

Guterres also fixed the spotlight on state incentives for extractive industries, scolding governments for "spending money on the wrong things" despite pledging to reform harmful subsidies.

"Subsidising fossil fuels is subsidising suicide," said Guterres of the coal, oil and gas that are "boiling our planet and are the scourge of biodiversity".

An Lambrechts from Greenpeace said decisions taken at COP17 "will only matter if governments follow through at home".

"They cannot continue promising to protect nature while supporting its destruction through harmful subsidies and incoherent policies. Any more delay is a threat to our survival on the planet," Lambrechts said on Sunday.

K.Hashimoto--JT