COP 15: Countries agree to achieve '30 by 30' goal

After four years of fractious talks, nearly 200 countries, including India, approved a historic Paris-style deal on Monday to protect and reverse dangerous loss to global biodiversity following an intense final session of negotiations at the UN COP15 summit here in Canada.

Amid loud applause from assembled delegates, the president of the COP15 biodiversity summit, which started on December 7, Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu, declared the Kunming-Montreal Agreement adopted.

The chair maneuvered to ignore Congo’s last-minute move which had refused to back the text and demanded greater funding for developing countries as part of the accord.

The Chinese-brokered deal is aimed at saving the lands, oceans and species from pollution, degradation and climate change.

Monitored wildlife populations – mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish – have seen a devastating 69 per cent drop on average since 1970, according to the Living Planet Report (LPR) 2022 of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations was the finance package to support conservation efforts globally, and particularly in developing countries.

The deal commits to progressively increase the level of financial resources from all sources by 2030, mobilising at least USD 200 billion per year. This represents roughly a doubling from a 2020 baseline.

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A major achievement is also the commitment to USD 20 billion in international finance flows by 2025 and USD 30 billion by 2030.

The 23 targets in the accord also include cutting environmentally “destructive" farming subsidies, reducing the risk from pesticides, and tackling invasive species.