COP15

The funding gap between what developing countries need for conservation and what's actually being offered by wealthy nations has become a major sticking point at the UN biodiversity conference in Montreal.Looming over the negotiations is an estimated $700 billion US gap that's needed to conserve biodiversity around the planet. Until now, only about $17 billion US in public funding has been committed."Without finance none of this can happen," said Jennifer Morris, CEO of global environmental group the Nature Conservancy,…

MONTREAL — At 3 on Monday morning Marco Lambertini was awake, seated in a giant conference room downtown, lit by fluorescent light and surrounded by government officials from around the world. It was far from the Swiss mountain trails he likes to hike, but he wasn’t going to miss one of the most important moments in his four-decades-long career. Lambertini helms the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the planet’s largest environmental organization, with roughly 9,000 employees and 72 offices. That Monday, he was…

MONTREAL, Canada — Early Monday morning, after several days of fraught negotiations, roughly 190 countries agreed on a historic plan to halt the decline of wildlife and ecosystems. Adopted at a UN biodiversity conference called COP15, the agreement contains 23 targets that countries must achieve within the decade. They include conserving at least 30 percent of all land and water on Earth by 2030 — the largest land and ocean conservation commitment in history — and shrinking subsidies for activities that harm nature,…

MONTREAL, Canada — On a busy street downtown is a life-size ice sculpture of a polar bear. It’s melting, revealing a fearsome-looking bronze skeleton underneath. Designed by artist Mark Coreth, the display is not a decoration but a warning: Climate change is killing wildlife like polar bears, which depend on sea ice. There are gloomy messages like this all over Montreal this week, as world leaders from more than 190 countries are meeting in the city for a conference known as COP15. It’s the UN’s big meeting on…

But others question the mentality of those trying to enforce it—even if it looks good on paper. Lakpa Nuri Sherpa, who is from Nepal, and represents the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, questioned whether the “top-down” approach associated with 30x30 would work unless those implementing it radically changed their approach to Indigenous peoples. “That’s where the problem lies because the solution comes from the top, and they don’t really know the realities on the ground, and the ‘solution’ doesn’t become a solution,” he says,…

MONTREAL, Canada — Top officials from more than 190 countries are meeting this week and next to solve one of the world’s greatest and most consequential challenges: the rapid decline of wildlife and ecosystems. Saving them will protect the many benefits they provide, from cleaning the air and water to pollinating our crops. At the meeting, known as COP15, delegates are expected to sign an important agreement called the Global Biodiversity Framework, which is like the Paris climate agreement but for nature. It includes…

One of the most important events for life on Earth, ever, is about to begin. This week and next, delegates from more than 190 countries will come together in Montreal, Canada, for a conference known as COP15, or the UN Biodiversity Conference, to hash out a plan to halt the decline of ecosystems, wildlife, and the life-supporting services they provide. If the term “COP” sounds familiar, that’s because there was another UN conference last month called COP27. But these two events are very different. COP27 was about…