Key figures in UN nature summit
Representatives from countries around the world have gathered at a United Nations summit in Montreal this week to hammer out a "peace pact for nature."
Here are the figures that define the COP15 talks.
- 30 by 30 -
Headlining the COP15 biodiversity talks is a drive to secure 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans as protected zones by 2030 -- the most disputed item on the agenda.
Some campaigners say the so-called "30x30" target is nature's equivalent of the landmark 1.5C global warming target set at climate talks under the Paris Agreement.
But delegates are divided over how the measure would be applied, and some countries support a more modest target of 20 percent, either for just the world's oceans, or for both land and oceans.
- 75% of land altered by humanity -
Seventy-five percent of the world's land surface is degraded -- a figure that includes cleared forest and ecosystems converted to croplands -- 66 percent of the ocean area is experiencing increasing cumulative impacts, and over 85 percent of wetlands have been lost.
These are the findings of the IPBES -- the scientific body that advises the United Nations on biodiversity, equivalent to the IPCC on the subject of climate.
In all, 32 percent of landmass is either moderately or severely degraded, estimates the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
All the more worrying as world agricultural production needs to increase 50 percent by 2050 in order to feed the future population of nearly 10 billion people.
- A million species threatened with extinction -
Of the estimated eight million animal and plant species on the planet, one million are threatened with extinction, according to IPBES.
The figure is twenty times higher than those actually documented as threatened in the IUCN red list, a global inventory which puts the number at around 42,000.
But its number is based only on a small denominator of 150,000 species for which solid scientific data exists.
The IPBES figure by contrast is based on modeling -- including, importantly, a "cautious" estimate that 10 percent of insect species are threatened with extinction, or 600,000 species.
- Half of GDP depends on nature -
More than half of the world's total GDP -- $44 trillion of economic value generation -- is either moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services, the World Economic Forum calculated in a striking report in 2020.
Construction ($4 trillion), agriculture ($2.5 trillion), and food and beverages ($1.4 trillion) are the three largest industries that depend most on nature, and are as a result exposed to grave risks from nature loss.
- $1.8 trillion in destructive subsidies -
A whopping $1.8 trillion is spent every year by governments on subsidies that are environmentally destructive, such as unsustainable agricultural activity, fossil fuel production and logging -- or two percent of global GDP, according to the international coalition Business for Nature.
The UN has a more conservative estimate: around $470 billion in subsidies to farmers, generating price distortions that are environmentally and socially harmful.
The pact under debate in Montreal would either "eliminate," "phase out" or "reform" subsidies by potentially up to $500 billion, though the figure isn't final.
- Show me the money -
Finally -- the spending necessary to achieve the objectives of the "Global Biodiversity Framework" is also contested, with poorer countries demanding substantial financial support from rich countries.
Brazil and a group of like-minded developing countries have proposed creating a new fund that should provide $100 billion yearly, or one percent of global GDP, until 2030.
Financial flows from the Global North to the Global South for biodiversity are currently estimated at around $10 billion annually, and high-income countries oppose a new fund.
Source: Agence France Presse
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