COP 15, United Nations Urges Countries to Invest in Biodiversity

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A new round of discussion concerning global biodiversity (COP 15) will commence in Kunming, China, on Monday, October 11, 2021, with the goal of raising the momentum after the signing of the ambitious agreement in 2020 to restore ecosystem damages caused by human intervention and climate changes for dozens of years.

As the meeting draws nearer, an official of the United Nations (UN) on Monday, 10 October, 2021, said that the global community must invest more and increase the scale and speed in protecting nature and prevent the extinction of a certain species.

"Currently, most countries spend more fund to subsidize biodiversity destructive activities then spending more to conserve it, this condition must change," said Executive Deputy Secretary of the United Ntions Convention on Biodiversity Davis Cooper in a press briefing on Monday, October 10, 2021.

According to Cooper, ministers attending the meeting, which will be held online, must present better ambitions and provide clear political direction to the paticipants, who will discuss the final deal in Kunming on May next year.

Environmental groups said that no time can be wasted to protect the ecosystem and to slow down the extinction rate, especially after the government failed to complete one of the biodiversity 2020 target agreed on in Aichi, Japan, a decade before.

However, Cooper said that the level of urgency is not yet enough. The United Nations wanted member parties to be committed to protect 30 percent of their country in 2030. Such commitment has been agreed by the United States and other countries.

China is yet to make its commitment although the country applied the "ecological limit restriction" that has set aside 25 percent of its territory outside the reaches of developers.

Cooper told reporters that it is important for all countries to protect more of its ecosystem, hwever, it would not be enough to restore the losses of biodiversity. Copper added that more commitment is needed to manage the other 70 percent.

He said that the global pandemic has triggerred a new urgency in biodiversoty protection, however, he warned that it has not been reflected in stimulus steps post-Covid 19.

"We must make sure ... [the stimulus] strengthen biodiversity and will not add to mor trouble. Globally, when you look at it, the stimulus package made it worse, not better," Cooper said.

ANTARA | REUTERS