MURAD KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: This is the 15th meeting of conference of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Delegates (Parties) from 196 countries of the world for finalizing a 10 years new deal/frame work(GBF-Global Biodiversity Frame work) for nature aimed at saving the planet’s forests, oceans and species before it’s too late. The COP15 has been welcomed by Canada on December 07, which will happen up to 19th December.
This is the biggest biodiversity conference in a decade and has been delayed for more than two years because of Covid-19 pandemic. It was planned to occur at China’s Kunming city, but due to strict precautionary measures of COVID-19, it has been shifted to Montreal (the beautiful city of Canada).
There are also 21 action-orientated targets that need to be achieved by 2030.In Montreal, delegates will negotiate to finalize the text of each of these 21 targets (Aichi Biodiversity Targets)
At the announcement speech the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will provide a new contribution of $350 million to support developing countries, which is home to the vast majority of the world’s biodiversity, in order to advance conservation efforts. This funding will support the implementation of the future GBF.
Trudeau highlighted Canada’s commitment to ensuring COP15 is a success by working with international partners to reach an agreement on an ambitious Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
This is in addition to the more than $1 billion Canada has already pledged to support climate action projects that address the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss in developing countries.
In his speech to COP15, the UN Secretary-General AntónioGuterres said Noting that “without nature, we are nothing”. He declared that humanity has, for hundreds of years “conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction”.
The UN chief catalogued examples of this destruction, from deforestation and desertification; to the poisoning of the environment by chemicals and pesticides, which is degrading land, making it harder to feed the growing global population.
He pointed also to the degradation of the Ocean, which is accelerating the destruction of life-sustaining coral reefs and other marine ecosystems – directly affecting those communities that depend on the ocean for their livelihoods.
Mr. Guterres called on international financial institutions and multilateral development banks to align their portfolios with the conservation, and sustainable use of, biodiversity.
Elizabeth Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said “We have been negotiating for a long time now. We speak of compromise, but we are not moving fast enough. Let us not lose sight of the point: to agree on a framework to support life on earth. There is no more noble a job than this. Let us move beyond the bracketed language to find a strong landing place and move faster. We all say there is no time to waste – our negotiation process has to reflect this. Frankly, it currently does not.”
Nothing less will do. In twelve days, you will need to have concluded the journey that started four years ago in Egypt, at COP14. Amongst a heavy wider agenda for COP, you must agree an ambitious post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, The Head of CBD added
“We cannot live without nature and biodiversity. Nature provides the very essence of life. Technology cannot replace the trees, the soil, the water, and the species that teem in them. We have no other world to flee to. When the web of life falls, we fall with it. In the coming days, you have a unique responsibility to deliver: to agree on the plan to make peace with nature. This responsibility is not a choice between something or nothing. It is a choice between everything or nothing. Mrema added
Observers called for negotiators to urgently unblock sticking points on difficult items like finance and implementation, with only five out of more than 20 targets agreed so far, but all the people are aware of the importance of these talks, some of the negotiators suggested that the Convention on Biodiversity COP should be held early instead of two years gap.
Being among the world’s most affected countries by climate change, Pakistan is facing a variety of cases of climate injustice committed by internal and external drivers. Waisbord’s referred “Advocate-journalist” model carries a good potential to advocate these injustices to stimulate democratic dialogue among the audience that eventually pushes leadership to make eco-friendly policies. This study critically analyses advocacy journalism coverage of cases of local and regional climate injustice in the editorial contents of mainstream Pakistani newspapers by using the quantitative content analysis method. Results reveal that selected newspapers gave inappropriate coverage to climate injustice issues both in quantity and quality. Besides muddled local and regional climate injustice issues’ priorities, editorialists also excessively recommended dirty energy solutions to the policymakers. The final analysis suggests that the findings of climate and energy-related scientific studies were not being reflected in the a
dvocacy journalism contents as well. This failure of “advocate-journalist” model to perform its normative role of potentially advocating the cases of climate injustice with compelling scientific evidence seems to attribute to the political economy of the press or editorial inattention. As a way out of this journalistic lack, Waisbord’s endorsed “civic advocacy” groups must intervene to plug the loopholes.
If we have a glance to all these negotiations from Pakistan’s perspective, our beloved country’s Corban emission is less than 1 %(0.9), but on the other hand we are amongst those first ten countries, which are very badly effecting from climate change, therefore the international community should take concrete steps to minimize the devastating floods, melting of glaciers and sudden change in the weather in all the countries of the world (including Pakistan into special consideration), which are badly effecting from environmental changes.
This story was supported by a Virtual Fellowship from the Earth Journalism Network.
The Writer is Radio Producer and freelance Environmental Journalist, who tweets on @Muradonline123
