China urges action as ministers meet at UN nature summit

MONTREAL - Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the world to take action on preventing nature loss in a video message to ministers from more than 120 countries assembled in Montreal for the United Nations biodiversity summit, of which China holds the presidency.

“We need to push forward the global process of biodiversity protection,” Mr Xi said on Thursday, via a translator. “All living things should flourish without harming each other.”

Countries are trying to reach a new global deal on

protecting nature through 2030,

guided by 23 targets. But progress has been slow.

The talks among delegates began on Dec 7, but countries have been unable to find agreement on aspects such as funding and how best to protect land and waters, with hundreds of unresolved items in a draft deal.

China on Thursday designated six ministers to carry out consultations on outstanding issues, including finance mobilisation and three key targets on conservation and restoration, in hopes of reaching a deal by the Dec 19 deadline.

The Mexican negotiating party in a Tuesday evening meeting promised a bottle of tequila to delegates for each item resolved in a draft target.

The transition team for incoming Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva struck a more serious note, sending a letter to the UN biodiversity secretariat

pushing for more movement on money.

“The current impasse in negotiations places this agenda at risk,” wrote Mr Jorge Viana, who is leading Mr Lula’s transition working group on the environment.

Early on Wednesday, developing country delegates walked out of a finance meeting to protest against the reluctance by rich nations at the summit to discuss new funds.

“Without financial resources commensurate with the level of ambition of the goals and targets in the framework, it will not be possible to implement,” the Brazilian letter read.

Developing countries have called for developed nations to

deliver US$100 billion (S$136 billion) per year in funding for biodiversity protection

in their territories. Experts say around US$700 billion per year is needed for nature.

But developed nations said they want to see ambition levels match financing. “There will be no funding if we don’t have an ambition level,” Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide told Reuters.

Referencing the loss and damage fund outcome at climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt in November, he noted that although some progress has been made there, there was not enough ambition on mitigating climate change.

“All of us who are on the high ambition side have basically vowed that we don’t want this to be a repeat of Sharm (El-Sheikh),” he said.

In his address on Thursday, Mr Xi said a sound ecosystem was essential for the prosperity of humanity. “We must work together to promote harmonious co-existence between man and nature,” he said.

“We need to build global consensus on biodiversity protection, jointly work for the conclusion of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and identify targets and pathways for global biodiversity protection.”

He urged support for developing countries and coordination of efforts to address climate change, biodiversity loss and other challenges.

Some banks and other financial services firms attending the summit are supporting a target in the draft deal which would oblige companies to analyse and report more information about how their operations affect, and are affected by, nature loss.

“We need specificity, objectivity and differentiation as investors,” said Mr Andrew Howard, global head of sustainable investment at British fund manager Schroders. “That’s what disclosure can help provide.”

As long as aspects like mandatory disclosure are agreed in a deal, the potential applications could be quick, said Mr Suresh Weerasinghe, head of EU and international policy at insurer Aviva.

If a deal is reached, “we can say it’s coming, we want to start seeing behaviour change now”, Mr Weerasinghe said. REUTERS, XINHUA