The UN has set out a Paris-style strategy to halt biodiversity loss. Some of the ambitious goals of this plan, which was drawn up by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) include eliminating plastic pollution, protecting a minimum of 30 percent of the world’s oceans and land, and reducing pesticide use by two-thirds.
The overarching goal of the CBD is to interrupt and reverse the ecological destruction of the planet by 2030, a year that many sustainability initiatives have targeted as their goal date, with further steps that extend to 2050. Some of these new goals for 2050 include enhancing the integrity of all ecosystems and reducing the rate of overall extinctions by 90 percent.
The most recent draft of the agreement follows arduous virtual scientific and financial negotiations in May and June and is yet to be analyzed by governments before a key summit in Kunming, China, where the text will undergo final negotiations. Unfortunately, the summit has already been delayed twice and, though it is scheduled for October of this year, it is expected to be postponed once again due to the pandemic. It is more likely that the summit will take place in Kunming in early 2022.
