The 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) took place in Montreal, Canada from December 7 to December 19. Governments from all over the world set new goals through 2030 to stop and reverse biodiversity loss and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
COP 15 was originally supposed to be held in Kunming, China in April 2022 but was postponed four different times until the third quarter of the year.
According to the UN Environment Program (UNEP), these are the results of COP 15:
- Adoption of a fair and comprehensive framework that matches the resources needed for implementation
- Targets that address pollution, overexploitation, fragmentation, and unsustainable agriculture practices
- A plan to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and outwardly recognized their contributions to nature
- Re-align financial flows to drive finances toward sustainable investments and away from ones that harm the environment
Why is Maintaining Biodiversity Important?
Protecting biodiversity is a very important factor when addressing the climate crisis. Biodiversity is credited for the nature that we know of and utilize in our everyday lives. Forests, freshwater, the regulation of the climate, freshwater, the quality of the air and soil, and our oceans are all impacted by biodiversity. When harmful environmental practices are emplaced, biodiversity declines.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has stated that the decline in biodiversity is going at a faster rate than at any time in human history, according to the IPBES’s global assessment report. COP 15’s initiatives will help aid in this declination.
The Importance of COP 15
COP 15 was the biggest conference addressing biodiversity in the last decade, making it a historic landmark for the UNEP. The nations at COP 15 agreed to help in conservation efforts of at least 30 percent of the world’s biodiversity. Only 17% of land and 10% of bodies of water are under protection from environmentally harmful practices. These nations agree to continue to maintain this protection and improve it with these new goals set in place.