COP15: And the ocean in all this?

The 15th United Nations Conference on Biodiversity has been held in Montreal (Canada) since 7 December. On Thursday 15 December, environment ministers from around the world started talks at the end of which a “global framework for biodiversity” should be adopted. But over time, the leading British newspaper The Guardian reports that some experts are concerned about the lack of oceans in conversations.

2 words out of 5000

The “Global Biodiversity Framework” should contain about twenty targets, protection of 30% of the lands and seas, the reduction of pesticides and the restoration of millions of hectares of degraded soils. But will the oceans be included in this 30%? Delegates interviewed by Keeper noticed that in the most recent employment contract, out of 5,000 words, the word “ocean” appears only twice. Therefore, they fear that marine protection measures are drowned – it must be said – among the other objectives adopted by the UN, or even completely absent from the agreements. They also point out that, so far, no specific calls have been made to combat overfishing, to protect coral reefs or to halt deep-sea mining.

The 30% target is already under threat

Experts even told the American newspaper representatives of some countries would even block the 30% goal, such as China, Russia, Iceland and Argentina. “We are concerned that these countries are trying to water down the deal to, say, 10 percent,” said Simon Cripps, executive director of marine conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society and COP15 attendee. We are currently at 7% protection, of which 3.5% is actually managedand look: sharks are becoming scarce, fisheries are massively overfished, coral reefs are on the brink. It is therefore clear that a 10% target does not work “.

The role of China

We also recall that this year the Cop is presided over by Xi Jinping, the Chinese president at the head of the country that emits the most greenhouse gases in the world. When you know how reluctant China is to help preserve the environment, it’s hard not to get discouraged already. This country also has the largest remote fishing fleet in the world., i.e. fishing practiced on the high seas or in international waters, with 17,000 industrial fishing vessels traversing the globe. Convincing them to reduce overfishing therefore appears to be a challenge. Members of the United Nations have until December 19 to reach an agreement.

Front page photo credit: Unsplash.