Biodiversity: The World Nature Agreement threatens bankruptcy

If the expenses of a company are in the long run higher than the income, then the insolvency threatens. It is similar to nature: if we continue to overuse our natural resources such as soil, forests, water, animal and plant populations, we are jeopardising our livelihoods and economic resources. Fortunately, the international community has recognised how risky that would be. Four years ago, almost all countries agreed on an ambitious agreement to protect biodiversity, ecosystems and genetic diversity. The negotiators in Montreal could hardly believe the successful agreement themselves. “Historically,” the United Nations cheered. “We are writing history,” the European Union rejoiced. Host Canada celebrated the agreement as a “Paris moment of biodiversity”. The link to the Paris climate protection agreement also shows where the crux lies: You can decide a lot. The decisive factor is whether those in power and will also have the will to implement what has been agreed. The first global test for the World Nature Agreement is the mid-term review, which the international community is now meeting in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The world community is not on track on the 17th. World Biodiversity Conference (COP 17) will show how serious leaders are about stopping and reversing the loss of ecosystem and biodiversity by 2030. In Montreal, an ambitious roadmap with almost two dozen goals was agreed. The most prominent is the 30-by-30 target: By 2030, 30 percent of the global land and ocean area should be effectively protected. But the interim review of the UN is alarming: not only this key goal is in danger of being missed. The world community as a whole is not on track to stop the destruction of nature. Germany is also lagging behind. In Yerevan, the negotiators are therefore facing a Herculean task: States must significantly expand and accelerate their efforts to protect natural resources – in times of multiple crises. But those who despondently or resentfully burden future generations with the ever-increasing burdens and costs of the ecological crisis. This is precisely what the Federal Constitutional Court has warned about with regard to the consequences of climate change. Unfortunately, conservation is even more complicated. There is no one lever like reducing greenhouse gases. The 30% mark for the designation of protected areas is only one building block. More protected areas would help make ecosystems more resilient and better secure nature’s “services” such as pollination of plants, water supplies and climate regulation. But that's not enough. The biggest challenge remains the transition to a sustainable economy and agriculture. How far away we are from it can also be seen in our everyday language. The “climate change” belongs to this, the “natural change” does not. In the UN interim report on the World Nature Agreement, things look particularly grim everywhere where money is involved. Especially valuable parts of natural capital are the rainforests in the countries of the Global South. But industrialized countries also depend on the biodiversity of the rainforests and their function as a carbon reservoir in the fight against climate change. At past conferences, new money pots have been created to support the Global South – but there is a lack of sufficient willingness to pay. The private sector only participates to a fraction. This would have to change, since half of the economic activities in the world depend on natural resources or services of nature. A serious problem is: With nature conservation, it is so far very difficult to earn money. A lever for a more gentle economy would be a turnaround in subsidy policy. In Montreal, the states had agreed to reduce global natural resources by at least $ 500 billion annually by 2030. But so little has happened so far that this goal can hardly be achieved. In Yerevan, the fundamental question is how credible international nature conservation policy still is. Excessive use of natural capital threatens prosperity and human well-being. It is not too late to avert the bankruptcy of the World Nature Agreement with a show of strength.