Canada and China prepare to open Cop15 biodiversity summit despite rifts

More than 10,000 scientists, government officials and activists will gather in Montreal this week for the world’s most important biodiversity conference, eager to hammer out a deal to stem habitat loss around the world and preserve sensitive ecosystems. The UN Cop15 biodiversity summit opens on Tuesday, and will see countries negotiate this decade’s targets for protecting nature after more than two years of pandemic-related delays and just over two weeks since the end of the Cop27 climate meeting in Egypt. There is growing hope that the summit will not only…

China and US renew commitment to tackling climate crisis but differences remain

China and the US have renewed their partnership to tackle the climate crisis, and are working closely and productively on ways of bringing down greenhouse gas emissions, China’s head of delegation has said. The surprise news from Xie Zhenhua, who briefed a small group of journalists at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Saturday, comes as a rare moment of progress amid a conference mired in stalemate and bitter fighting between developed and developing countries. Xie said he and John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate,…

Scott Morrison tells Cop26 Australia will exceed 2030 target in bid to fend off criticism

Scott Morrison has used his national statement at the Cop26 to emphasise that Australia will probably overachieve on its 2030 emissions reduction target in an effort to blunt international criticism about his government’s lack of climate ambition. While the lead-up to the Glasgow summit was dominated by Morrison’s negotiations with the National party to land a net zero commitment by 2050, the UN-led event is focused on ambition for the 2030s. Australia – part of a bloc of big emitters and exporters at last weekend’s G20 summit in Rome attempting…