Divisions between developed and developing nations over who should pay to protect Earth’s ecosystems are threatening to derail a UN biodiversity summit after a group of developing countries walked out of discussions overnight. In echoes of last month’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt – where countries agreed to create a new fund to compensate loss and damage from global heating in vulnerable nations – countries from the global south left Cop15 talks on Wednesday due to disagreements over finance. The Cop15 host, China, was organising crisis talks with heads of…
Tag: Wildlife
Cop15 negotiators have left their homework to the last minute – can they scrape a pass? | Patrick Greenfield
All procrastinators know the feeling: an enormous task is not close to being finished, time is slipping away and the pressure to act has become impossible to ignore. But despite the mounting unease, there is still not yet enough pressure to take action, and it is unclear if there ever will be. At the Palais des congrès de Montréal convention centre at Cop15, after more than two years of delays, there is a sense that governments tasked with agreeing this decade’s targets for protecting life on Earth are in just…
Canada leads calls for 30% for nature target as
Conserving 30% of Earth for nature would be equivalent to the 1.5C climate target, Canada’s environment minister has said, as senior UN figures warn action on nature loss at Cop15 this month is key to helping solve the biodiversity and climate crises. Steven Guilbeault, a former environmental activist who is now Canada’s climate minister, said that agreeing to conserve nearly a third of the planet by the end of the decade is a key aim for his country at the biodiversity summit, which is being held in Montreal over the…
Making sense of Cop15: what to look out for in Montreal
Planet Earth is enduring the largest loss of life since the time of the dinosaurs, according to scientists. This loss is being driven by human behaviour, and governments are split on how to respond. At Cop15 in Montreal, many of these divisions will come to a head as they negotiate this decade’s UN biodiversity targets, known as the global biodiversity framework – or “GBF” if you are an insider. From the key players to what’s on the table, here’s what you need to know to make sense of the summit.…
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…
Beloved giant panda given to Taiwan by China dies aged 18 after seizures
A panda given to Taiwan by China 14 years ago as a symbol of what were then warmer ties died on Saturday, after suffering seizures, Taipei zoo said. Tuan Tuan and his breeding mate Yuan Yuan were given to Taiwan by Beijing in late 2008, at a time when relations between the two were more cordial. China views Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to one day bring the self-ruled democratic island into its fold, by force if necessary. “Our medical team has confirmed that Tuan Tuan’s…
Turtle concern: Australian businessman denies threatening to sell Conflict Islands to China
The owner of 21 tropical islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea says he never threatened to sell them to China and his main aim is to save the turtles that nest there. Ian Gowrie-Smith, an Australian businessman and investor, bought the Conflict Islands, which lie less than 1,000km from the Australian coast, almost two decades ago. The largely uninhabited atolls are a nesting ground for critically endangered hawksbill and green turtles, whose breeding season begins within weeks. Some then migrate to the Great Barrier Reef. Gowrie-Smith had been…
Chinese influencer who ate great white shark investigated by police
A Chinese influencer is under police investigation after a clip of her roasting and eating a great white shark went viral. Footage of the vlogger, known by her online pseudonym Tizi, showed her feasting on the predatory fish, which police in the central city of Nanchong confirmed was a great white. “It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender,” Tizi said while tearing off large chunks of the animal’s barbecued meat, in a video posted in mid-July. In the video, since deleted, she is seen unwrapping a…
Ancient forest found at bottom of huge sinkhole in China
An ancient forest has been found at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in China, with trees up to 40 metres (130ft) tall. Scientists believe it could contain undiscovered plant and animal species. Cave explorers in the Guangxi region of southern China alerted scientists when they found the sinkhole, which had a primitive forest inside. Among 30 sinkholes in Leye County this is the largest, at 306 metres long, 150 metres wide and 192 metres deep. An aerial photo shows a different karst sinkhole in Leye County in 2020. Photograph:…
What really happened at Geneva’s crucial biodiversity negotiations?
For talks that are meant to be about halting the mass extinction of life on Earth, the slow pace of negotiations in Geneva ahead of Cop15, the major biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, later this year, was not a hopeful sign that meaningful action would follow. As discussions drew to a close this week, little progress was made on the targets and goals that are meant to herald nature’s “Paris moment”. Rhetoric from rich developed nations about the need for ambition on halting biodiversity loss was not being followed through…