Can world leaders agree to protect 30 percent of all nature by 2030? In that case, how should one follow up such a goal? And who will pay for it? These are some of the giant questions being discussed during the run-up to the Montreal Nature Summit. The agreement is so important that it is called a Paris agreement for nature. At the nature summit, they will agree on a so-called framework for biological diversity for the years after 2020. Norway has submitted a proposal for an important point in the agreement Climate and Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide and Chile’s Environment Minister Majsa Rojas today handed over a so-called “clean document” to the presidency before the meeting. This is a proposal for a solution to the negotiation track that Norway was set to lead. – Now we have reached agreement among practically all the world’s countries in a decision on this point, says Eide to news. PROPOSAL: Norway today submitted a proposal for a solution to one of the three important points in the agreement. Here together with Chile’s environment minister and the president of the nature summit. Photo: Maria Varteressian The negotiations, which Norway has helped to lead, are on a point that developing countries have long called for. They want a demand for payment for discoveries made by the pharmaceutical industry based on their biological diversity. The proposed solution is that continued free access to nature’s gene bank for everyone is ensured by placing a “fee” on products that are developed based on data from this gene bank. The income from this fee goes to a fund that will be used to preserve and restore nature in poor countries. – Then it is important to say that there will only be an agreement if the other two parts also fall into place. So this agreement will have three legs, and now it seems that we have one of them in place, says Eide. There are still the parts that deal with funding and level of ambition. Under ambition lies the very central point, to reach an agreement on 30 per cent protection by 2030. “30 within 30” – We are in the middle of a natural crisis, and up to a million species are threatened with extinction. The scientific basis is that we must preserve around 30 percent of the earth in order to have a good basis for life and take care of natural diversity, says WWF’s senior adviser Sverre Lundemo to news in Montreal. Climate and Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide is present at the nature summit in Montreal. Photo: LARS HAGBERG / AFP The agreement is scheduled to be in place on Monday. Norway’s top envoy to Montreal, climate and environment minister Espen Barth Eide is working towards the goal of “30 by 30”. – In Montreal, we will work to ensure that at least 30 per cent of the earth’s surface is well protected, and that the world stands together for a goal of a nature-positive future. Set for more nature But the job is not done if they reach the finish line on Monday. The minister himself is in the process of playing Norway into a corner where we are both held more strictly to account and have to come up with more money. – A kind of declaration to stop the degradation of nature, that we should preserve and protect more, we will get enough of that. But how to do this concretely and clearly, so that the countries can look at each other and their follow-up, will probably be the most demanding. And that again will only be possible if the countries that have the resources to do so can contribute financially to help the poorer countries to do their part, says Eide to news. And the nature conservation organizations are queuing up to hold him accountable for this: – We are going to make demands that the Norwegian government must deliver on the ambitions that they have flagged at the forefront, regardless of the result in Montreal, says Lundemo in WWF. And the government is not going to get away with “custom duty protection” either, promises Christian Steel in Sabima. – There is a long way to go, especially until protection is representative – which is really the whole point of protection. If we only protect where there is no conflict, then we are not protecting something that was in danger of being destroyed. It is much better to have 20 percent representative protection than 30 percent nonsense protection. A long way to go But it must be the correct 30 percent that is protected. In Norway, most of the protected nature is on Svalbard or in the mountains. Where the greatest biodiversity is, in the forests, we have only protected around 5.2 per cent, according to Miljøstatus.no. On Friday, the government protected a further 54 forest areas in ten Norwegian counties. We are thus only halfway to the goal in the previous biodiversity convention: 10 per cent forest protection by 2020. At the same time, the budget for voluntary forest protection was recently cut by NOK 11 million in next year’s state budget. There is also a long way to go to 30 percent protection for the sea. Today, only around 1 percent of the sea in the Norwegian economic zone is protected. Requires stricter follow-up Even more important than the conservation goal is the follow-up of the goals, believes Christian Steel in Sabima. – We obviously need both. But the agreement is worth little if the countries do what they want afterwards. Steel points out that Norway did not reach any of the natural targets that the UN Biodiversity Convention (the Aichi Targets) set for 2020, according to a report made by the Nature Conservation Association, WWF, ForUM and Sabima. In addition, Norway’s report to the UN on the state of Norwegian nature was full of errors and shortcomings, as news has previously written about. The OECD has also criticized Norway’s nature management. – What would Norway have done better if the follow-up to the goals was stronger? – Then I think we would have had the conservancy more representative, allocated more money, and we would have had to have made the evaluations that we do not have today of the conservancy. Steel believes Norway does much more for the climate than for nature, because we have binding requirements from the EU that we must report on. – I’m pretty sure we would have done better if we couldn’t just write anything in the reports that no one checked. It’s almost as if there was no censorship at the exam – everyone got top marks just for showing up, says Steel.
ttn-69
– An important part of the goal – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
