COP28 moves to protect the natural world: historic or not enough?

While conservation groups have praised the inclusion of biodiversity and a 2030 global deforestation goal in the UAE consensus that emerged from this year’s summit, concerns remain.

Last December, delegates from almost 200 nations at the ‘last chance’ COP15 conference in Montreal reached a ‘historic’ deal to halt biodiversity loss.

Pledging that at least 30% of the world’s land, inland waters, coastal areas, and oceans would come under conservation by 2030, the agreement set out to reverse decades of environmental destruction threatening the Earth’s species and ecosystems.

It came amid plummeting insect numbers, acidifying seas teeming with plastic waste, and the rampant overconsumption of the planet’s resources as the global population soared past eight billion.

The hope was that it would put humanity on a path to living in harmony with nature by the middle of the century and prevent the human-caused sixth mass extinction event that scientists have been warning against for some time now.

A year on, and this has been revisited at COP28 in the UAE.

Under the consensus that emerged on the 13^th, governments will now be obliged to take the natural world and carbon stores such as forests into consideration while developing their next round of nationally determined contributions to the Paris agreement.

The new plan notes the need for more financial resources for nature and implementation based on ‘the best available science as well as Indigenous people’s knowledge and local knowledge systems.’

It also ‘emphasises the importance of conserving, protecting, and restoring nature and ecosystems towards achieving the Paris agreement temperature goal.’