By Johan Galtung, Ahmed Djoghlaf, and - -
NAGOYA, JAPAN, Oct 18 2010 (IPS)

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro held in June 1992, which witnessed the birth of the Convention on Biological Diversity, former Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa stated “Our joint endeavor to protect the global environment has just been launched. The real challenge is how we can translate our political will here in Rio into future actions to save the Earth. However steep the climb may be, we must move forward.” Eighteen years later, the need to translate political commitments into concrete action is just as pressing. As Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara stated at the High-Level Event on Biodiversity of the recent UN General Assembly, “for the future generations to inherit the benefits of nature, it is imperative that we specifically indicate collective actions over the next 10 years.”

Aichi Nagoya Biodiversity Summit (October 24-26), the historical 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, is indeed the perfect forum and the ideal place to shape and agree on as a human family the post 2010 biodiversity strategy with a view of stopping and reversing the unprecedented loss of biodiversity compounded by climate change.

The third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook, issued early this year based on information contained in national reports submitted by 120 governments, demonstrated that the 2010 biodiversity target has not been met and we continue to lose biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. It is estimated that the current loss of biodiversity may be 1000 times higher than the natural background of extinction. The report also warns that irreversible degradation may take place if ecosystems are pushed beyond certain tipping points, leading to the widespread loss of ecosystem services that we depend on greatly. It predicts that the status of biodiversity for the million years to come will be determined by the action or inaction of human species in the decade to come.

The 193 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and their partners have the mission to adopt a new biodiversity strategy with a 2050 vision and a 2020 target and sub targets. They will be guided by the strong message addressed to them by the heads of state and government who attended the first ever High-Level Event of the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly, held in New York on 22 September 2010. They will be inspired by the Geneva Call for Urgent Action on Biodiversity adopted on 3 September by the Ministers and their representatives of 11 countries that have hosted or will host a Conference of the Parties.

The Participants to the Biodiversity Summit have also individually and collectively an obligation to translate within two years this new vision into national biodiversity strategies and actions plans. They have an obligation to do so before the next Conference of the Parties to be held in New Delhi in October 2012 a few weeks after the Rio plus 20 Summit.

The participants will have also an obligation to mainstream the three objectives of the Convention into economic sectors by elevating biodiversity to a priority of their development plans and processes. Indeed biodiversity is an integral component to achieving sustainable development and alleviating poverty. Indeed 1.6 billion people are estimated to depend substantially on forest biodiversity for their survival and livelihood. And, yet, about 13 million hectares of the worldÂ’s forests are lost due to deforestation each year.

Biodiversity loss affects all regions of the world, but mostly economically disadvantaged areas, where there are many people living in extreme conditions, with little access to water, sanitation, livelihoods, and education. These are basic human needs and rights and they are dependent on the availability of natural resources on the planet. As Gro Harlem Brundtland stated, ‘You cannot tackle hunger, disease, and poverty unless you can also provide people with a healthy ecosystem in which their economies can grow.’ This wisdom has been reiterated last month in New York by the world leaders at the 10 year review Summit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

It will be the important achievement of the Aichi Nagoya Summit to conclude the 8-year negotiation on the international regime on Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources and to adopt the International Protocol on ABS. It will make a major contribution to achieving the MDGs by implementing the third objective of the Convention: ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources. Access and benefit-sharing refers to the way genetic resources ­whether plant, animal or microorganism­ are accessed in countries of origin, and how the benefits that result from their use by various research institutes, universities or private companies are shared with the people or countries that provide them. This historical achievement calls for political will of all Parties and their partners including the business community and indigenous and local communities to engage in good faith with one another and display the necessary spirit of compromise in the long term interest of humanity and its environment.

The Provision of financial resources is crucial for the implementation of the Nagoya biodiversity compact. The heads of bilateral and multilateral donor agencies have been invited to be part of the global alliance for protecting life on earth. They cannot miss this opportunity to make a difference to transform the traditional Official Development Assistance into the instrument of peace and prosperity of tomorrow.

There is no time for delay to agree on our collective actions, for we owe future generations a healthy environment. In responding to our mission and implementing our obligation as citizens of the world gathered in Nagoya under the motto Living in Harmony into the Future, let us be guided and inspired by wisdom of the host of the Curitiba biodiversity meeting: “We know the problem and we have the tools. What is lacking is the political will and concrete action. Never before have so many ministers gathered to consider the fate of biodiversity. Never before have they had such a complete analysis of the threats and options. Never before have politicians had so few reasons not to act”. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Ryu Matsumoto is the Minister of the Environment of Japan and Ahmed Djoghlaf is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity

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By Miren Gutierrez and Ahmed Djoghlaf
BELLAGIO, Italy, Jul 17 2009 (IPS)

Declining amphibian populations, dwindling fish stocks, waning ocean biodiversity, loss of forests…All scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history.

Ahmed Djoghlaf Credit:

Ahmed Djoghlaf is one of the most well known global warriors against biodiversity loss. He is trying to make the most out of the International Year of Biodiversity next year, and of international meetings in the run-up to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10) in Nagoya in Japan in October 2010.

Executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) since 2003, he has also been assistant executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), coordinator of UNEP's division of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and general rapporteur of the preparatory committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), better known as the Rio Summit.

IPS: You said recently that "we receive increasingly strong signals of distress from the natural systems that provide the services that sustain our daily needs and livelihoods." What are those signals, and is anything being done to respond to them? Ahmed Djoghlaf: The last assessment of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) – done by 2,500 experts – demonstrated in 2007 that climate change is real, that it is happening now, and that we, human beings, are responsible for it. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – in which more than 1,300 experts participated, launched in 2005 – demonstrated that the loss of biodiversity is real, and it is an unprecedented threat to the ecosystems. The current rate of extinction is a thousand times the natural rate. We are maybe reaching a turning point where we cannot reverse this crisis. We are experiencing the sixth global mass extinction of species, but the first human-caused mass extinction. Climate change is one of the main drivers of loss. The different studies concluded that, by 2010, we could achieve what the heads of state decided in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, provided we undertook unprecedented efforts at all levels. Unfortunately, these unprecedented efforts have yet to be made. By 2010, surely, when the (United Nations) General Assembly in September 2010 meets, it will be difficult for any head of state to say that his or her country has achieved the promise. However, this will be a unique opportunity for the leaders of the world to produce a change to stop the silent tsunami of the loss of biodiversity.

Djoghlaf spoke with IPS during a meeting on agricultural biodiversity organised by Bioversity International – the largest international research organisation dedicated to conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity.

IPS: Biodiversity loss and climate change are intimately linked. However, the recent G8 forum on energy and climate in L'Aquila, Italy, produced a declaration that included no concrete commitments on how much air pollutant emissions should be cut and when. What is your reading of the meeting? Ahmed Djoghlaf: The declaration is important. Of course, long-term targets need to be set, as well as short-term targets. The leadership of the G8 should commit to a post-Kyoto agreement in Copenhagen (next December).

This has been the first time that these heads of state endorsed the biodiversity commitments contained in the Syracuse Charter on Biodiversity, issued during the G8 environment summit in April this year. The Syracuse declaration was a very strong statement to take leadership on biodiversity and to finalise the negotiation under the international regime by 2010 in Nayoga.

The climate change challenge is a technical and financial issue, but it is first an environmental issue. Tropical deforestation contributes to 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of about 13 million hectares per year, together with biodiversity that has yet to be recorded. Oceans absorb 20 percent of emissions; however global warming weakens the capacity of the oceans for natural abortion of emissions.

IPS: In L'Aquila, developing nations argued that, before committing to any action, industrialised countries should first agree to a 40 percent reduction of emissions by 2020, related to 1990 levels. Most biodiversity wealth is located in the so-called South. What do you think the role of developing countries should be? AD: Indeed, countries like India or China have more biodiversity than all G8 countries put together. Therefore the dialogue between the G8 and its partners in the South, that is, those who are rich in technology and financial resources, and those who are rich in biodiversity, is essential for the three objectives of the Convention on Biodiversity (conservation of biological diversity, its sustainable use, and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of genetic resources).

The strong partnership between the North and the South that emerged from the Rio declaration (in 1992) is essential. It contained the basis for the links between rich countries and developing countries, and it should provide leadership and different responsibilities based on contributions and needs.

IPS: It should, but why wasn't a more substantial agreement reached at L'Aquila? AD: Because short-term interests are prevailing. If you think about the long- term targets, then all parties have all to win from an agreement: North, South, humanity will win. Short-term politics, short-sighted politicians are prevailing. We cannot afford to have this.

IPS: The position of developed countries – which urged developing nations to make a commitment to cut emissions by 2050 – and of developing countries stand far apart as the Copenhagen climate change conference approaches. What are your expectations for Copenhagen? How will this influence what happens in 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity? AD: Climate change and biodiversity loss are closely interlinked, and any agreement reached in Copenhagen will affect positively or negatively the biodiversity summit in 2010. The leaders of the world and the international community cannot afford to miss the Copenhagen opportunity to renew the efforts to attack climate change.

IPS: One in four mammals is at risk of disappearing, according to the red list of threatened species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). But the 2010 biodiversity target is to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Is this still achievable? What would you consider 'significant'? AD: This is a major problem the international community will face in Nagoya, where about 8,000 people will assess the progress made to achieve the 2010 target. We are working on a major study, the Global Biodiversity Outlook, which will be released in 2010, based on national reports governments are supposed to send. It will offer a snapshot of the state of biodiversity. There will be scientific data on whether countries have achieved the target.

More important than pointing fingers is to draw lessons from the Johannesburg target (for 2002) and the Nagoya strategy post-2010. So, 'significant' compared to what? The 2002 baseline assessment report? We hope that (the Nagoya strategy post-2010) criteria are measurable, identifying mechanisms to achieve targets because it is important to take decisions at the national level that translate into strategies.

IPS: COP 10 will evaluate the status of the 2010 biodiversity target and discuss a new target. Do you expect to have good news about concrete biodiversity indicators? What has changed since COP 1 in 1994 in Nassau, Bahamas? AD: The convention is unique and complex, and it has taken some time to adopt. There are work programmes in all sectors, guidelines in cross-cutting areas. And now the time has come to implement the convention.

What is happening now in comparison with the Bahamas meeting is that parties are engaged in the implementing phase. Also in L'Aquila you had heads of state referring to the Convention on Biodiversity. This started with the G8 summit of Heiligendamm in 2007, and was followed up in the Hokkaido/Toyako summit. This commitment has taken some time to emerge.

Biodiversity is mainstreamed at the highest level. Next year we will make a case in New York, during the General Assembly in September, when we will talk exclusively about biodiversity. It has never happened before. This momentum will be translated in Nagoya into concrete actions to implement the convention.

For the first time also, the U.N. has devoted one year to biodiversity. At the end of 2010 all people on the planet will be aware of the challenge, committed, and a partner to change. This is a tremendous revolution.

*Miren Gutierrez is IPS Editor-in-Chief.

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By Ahmed Djoghlaf and - -
MONTREAL, Jun 1 2007 (IPS)

Fifteen years after the Rio Earth Summit later, the consequences of the changes made by humans to Earth\’s natural systems have never been clearer, write Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change. In this article, the authors write that climate change is now recognized as an issue of extreme global importance. This year\’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) served to remove lingering doubts about the human role in global warming. As a result, in the last few months there has been a sea change in international public and political awareness and resolve to take action. Equally important but still less prominent in the public eye and on the political agenda is the continuing loss of biodiversity, which is a significant threat to human well-being. In terms of the intergovernmental climate change process, this year is critical for moving parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change towards the next phase of multilateral climate change abatement. A strong framework needs to be in place by 2010 to ensure that there is no gap between the end of the Kyoto Protocol\’s first commitment period in 2012 and the entry into force of a future regime. A comprehensive agenda on the future needs to be agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Bali in December this year. A new global alliance for life on Earth is urgently needed. We can no longer afford to miss any opportunity to turn the objectives of the Rio Earth Summit of fifteen years ago into practical action that will safeguard the planet\’s life support systems. We owe this to ourselves, to our children, to future generations, and to life on Earth.

As we commemorate World Environment Day fifteen years later, and twenty years after the Bruntland report, ”Our Common Future”, the consequences of the changes made by humans to Earth’s natural systems have never been clearer. Most prominently, climate change is now recognized as an issue of extreme global importance. This year’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and its finding that climate change is unequivocally human-induced, served to remove lingering doubts about the human role in global warming. As a result, in the last few months there has been a sea change in international public and political awareness and resolve to take action.

Equally important but still less prominent in the public eye and on the political agenda is the continuing loss of biodiversity, which is a significant threat to human well-being. As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has shown, basic services such as a secure food supply, the provision of fresh water, and protection against disasters are in jeopardy as ecosystems across the globe are degraded by human activity.

The Earth Summit gave rise to separate international conventions on climate change and biodiversity – the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – which aimed at tackling these twin threats through global co-operation. It is increasingly evident, however, that the issues are intimately linked. What we must now strive for, therefore, is active co-ordination between the policies of these Conventions so that the linkages between these threats to human survival can be more effectively addressed.

The clearest link between climate change and biodiversity was set out in the IPCC’s conclusion that approximately 20%-30% of the plant and animal species so far assessed are likely to be placed at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperatures exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees centigrades. This is due to a range of climate change-related impacts which are projected to have far-reaching effects, including the disruption of migration patterns, habitat degradation due to rising temperatures and rainfall changes, and the ”bleaching” of coral reefs as the delicate balance between coral and algae is disrupted by warmer oceans. It is also feared that the acidification of seawater due to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide will affect the ability of many marine organisms to form their shells.

Climate change is forecast to become the single greatest threat to biodiversity by the end of this century. Tackling the causes of climate change and reducing its scale is therefore an overarching priority for safeguarding ecosystems and the services they provide to human societies.

The link between climate change and biodiversity also operates in the other direction. Measures aimed specifically at safeguarding biodiversity can help both to reduce the scale of climate change and to minimize its impacts on nature and people. For example, protecting the enormous variety of plant and animal life in tropical forests will reduce the significant contribution made to greenhouse gas emissions by deforestation, enhance the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its storage by plants, and at the same time preserve the role of the ecosystem in maintaining inland waters and groundwater recharge. Protecting mangroves, coral reefs, and coastal wetlands will help to lessen the impacts of extreme weather-related events, storms, and surges.

Tackling the multiple threats to ecosystems from human activities will make them more resilient to climate change. For example, it will be essential to increase the resilience of agricultural systems by protecting the large array of life forms with unique resilient traits, such as plants that survive droughts. Widely introducing sustainable agricultural practices can increase food security for a growing global population and help protect biologically diverse ecosystems.

An important step was taken in March. The ministers of environment of the G8 and five major newly industrializing countries – Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa – came together in Potsdam specifically to look at these two global challenges. The ministers agreed that more efforts are needed to coherently address climate change and biodiversity together and supported a proposed Potsdam Initiative that will promote better co-ordination between policies and action addressing the two issues and will include a study of the economic benefits of biological diversity, the costs of its loss and failing to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation.

A global alliance for biodiversity conservation is required among the richest countries . Such an alliance is needed to prepare new biodiversity targets and agreements once those adopted in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development expire.

In terms of the intergovernmental climate change process, this year is critical for moving parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) towards the next phase of multilateral climate change abatement. A strong framework needs to be in place by 2010 to ensure that there is no gap between the end of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period in 2012 and the entry into force of a future regime. A comprehensive agenda on the future needs to be agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Bali in December this year.

A new global alliance for life on Earth is urgently needed. We can no longer afford to miss any opportunity to turn the objectives of the Rio Earth Summit of fifteen years ago into practical action that will safeguard the planet’s life support systems. We owe this to ourselves, to our children, to future generations, and to life on Earth. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Ahmed Djoghlaf
TORONTO, May 21 2007 (IPS)

Biodiversity is what sustains life on Earth, but we are on the verge of the sixth mass extinction of species in the planet’s history, Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told Tierramérica.

On the eve of World Biodiversity Day, May 22, in a conversation with correspondent Stephen Leahy, Djoghlaf underscored that climate change is creating conditions to which plant and animal life cannot react to quickly enough. In turn, the loss of species will aggravate global warming, creating a vicious cycle.

Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Credit: Courtesy of CBD

AHMED DJOGHLAF: Species cannot respond fast enough to changing climatic conditions. The warming oceans are having a tremendous impact on coral reefs and plankton, crucial to marine biodiversity. And combined with over-fishing, this means fish stocks will be effectively wiped out by 2048, recent research shows. That will affect the livelihoods of many millions of people.

At the same time, reduction in plankton means the oceans will absorb less carbon dioxide and climate change will worsen. This is also true regarding deforestation: less forest means more carbon in the atmosphere and less biodiversity. Tropical forests contain most of the world’s biodiversity. Brazil, for example, is home to more biodiversity than all G8 countries combined. (Group of Eight wealthiest countries: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and United States).

On May 22 in New York City we will try and put a human face on this by highlighting the impacts of climate change on the world’s 300 million indigenous people. Many indigenous people live with nature but climate change is undermining their traditions, and the natural resources they depend on.

TA: Why should the public be concerned about the decline in biodiversity?

AD: It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the medicines we depend on. Biodiversity is what sustains life on the Earth. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported last year that two-thirds of ecosystems are in decline. We are on the verge of the sixth mass extinction in the history of the Earth. The current trend is that 30 percent of all known species will vanish before the end of the century.

TA: People are worried about climate change but have little awareness about the biodiversity crisis. What can be done about that?

AD: This April was the warmest April ever in Europe, and people can see and feel that. Declines in biodiversity are not obvious to us. People don’t know that we rely on only 12 different plants for our food, when it used to be more than 7,000. We are not aware that 85 percent of the medicines in the United States come from plants or animals. We need to raise public awareness that we are undermining life on Earth.

TA: What needs to be done to protect biodiversity?

AD: Business as usual is not sustainable. If everyone had the same lifestyle as the average American, we would need five planets. We have only one planet. We have to act differently at all levels – public, government and business.

TA: Is an intergovernmental panel, like the one for climate change, needed for biodiversity so that scientists can advise policy makers?

AD: We need many panel-type organisations for different aspects of biodiversity. The CBD itself is a modest operation with a small staff and budget of 10 million dollars, which is mainly used to hold meetings.

TA: Is there any progress on the commitment made at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg to stop or reduce significantly biodiversity loss at the global, regional and local levels by 2010?

AD: Germany has committed to making climate change and biodiversity the focus of the next G8 summit in Japan. We will get an assessment of how some countries are faring and how countries can fulfil their commitment. Prior to the CBD’s COP10 (Conference of Parties) in 2010, also in Japan, there will be a full report on how biodiversity can be assessed country by country. The COP will also establish a post-Johannesburg target for biodiversity. The year 2010 will also be the International Year of Biodiversity.. This will be the first time the world community will concentrate on the issue.

(*Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

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