Starting this week, thousands of people will drop on the Colombian city of Cali for an vital encountering you may have never heard of: COP16.
This event is a huge deal.
Commonly comprehendn as the UN biodiversity summit, COP16 is a encountering of rulement official from around the world — foreseeed including some heads of state — to figure out how to stop ecoreasoned collapse. COP, which stands for “conference of the parties,” conveys together environmental guideers and officials from countries that are part of the Convention on Bioreasoned Diversity, a global treaty under the UN to save nature. They encounter every other year to push forward a conservation agfinisha.
The last summit, comprehendn as COP15, was arguably much more vital. During the event, held in 2022, cforfeitly all countries of the world consentd on a groundshattering novel deal to stop biodiversity loss by 2030. The deal has 23 concentrates, including conserving at least 30 percent of land and oceans and reducing annual subsidies that harm ecosystems by at least $500 billion. Experts hailed it as the Paris consentment for nature, the global treaty to combat climate alter.
COP16, which runs from October 21 thcdisorrowfulmireful November 1, won’t have the same sort of flacowardly outcome. Yet it’s a critical moment as countries appraise their better toward the 23 concentrates and helderly each other accountable.
Spoiler: They’re way off track.
A novel inestablish, for example, set up that less than 3 percent of the ocean is effectively defended from damaging activities, appreciate overfishing. Subsidies that harm nature have only ballooned in recent years, accomplishing into the trillions of dollars. What’s more is that many countries have fall shorted to encounter a deadline to surrfinisher arranges for how they aim to accomplish the objectives of the nature deal, comprehendn as the global biodiversity structuretoil, wilean their own borders.
Beyond serving as a establishal examine-in, COP16 will caccess a restrictcessitate convey inant publishs. To comprehend the hugegest sapshows of these negotiations, we’ve compiled our inestablishing below.
One of the convey inant publishs to apshow caccess stage at this month’s negotiations is how best to regulate DNA from arrangets and animals that’s set up in online databases. This genetic data, referred to as digital sequence guideation, or DSI, is engaged by a range of companies to produce products such as vaccines and dcdisorrowfulmirefult-adselecting crops.
We elucidate this thorny publish here.
In Cali, global guideers will be talking how to includeress a convey inant funding gap and how to lift funds necessitateed for critical conservation. Negotiations will caccess on what role rulements and the stateiveial sector — companies and dispenseors — will necessitate to take part. Read our coverage on this here.
Another convey inant part of this year’s summit will be a talkion about how to watch better toward achieving the 23 concentrates in the global watching structuretoil. This includes figuring out what data to engage to examine if the world has, say, actupartner saved 30 percent of all land.
Read Vox’s story about one of the indicators, the Living Planet Index, here.
One vital piece of context to defend in mind is that although the US helped barobtain the Convention on Bioreasoned Diversity — the treaty under which COP16 apshows place — it’s not a establishal member of the consentment. In fact, the US is the only country, other than the Vatican, that’s not party to the Convention.
I wrote about what that unbenevolents here. Keep in mind this story was published in 2021.
Reach out! Next week I’ll be in Colombia follothriveg these convey inant themes. If you have feedback or ideas for our coverage, prent get in touch.