UN conference in Montreal aims to hammer out urgent deal to save nature

SINGAPORE – Global talks get under way on Wednesday that aim to strike a deal to arrest the rapid decline of nature on land and in the oceans, with the planet undergoing its greatest loss of species since the dinosaurs died out.

Delegates from nearly 200 nations are attending the United Nations’ COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Canada, from Dec 7 to 19. The UN hopes the meeting will end with

agreement on ambitious goals and targets

to halt and reverse the dangerous loss of species, which are under threat from the triple crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.