New global agreement on biodiversity needed

Today, the European Parliament will vote on a resolution on the upcoming COP15 on a global convention on biodiversity. The resolution of the European parliament demands ambitious, measurable and clear targets both globally and at the EU level.

The global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity is ending in 2020 without much progress. The COP15 meeting in China will have a lot at stake when deciding on how to protect biodiversity for the next ten years and beyond. The aim is to create legally binding targets in order to halt and reverse collapse of ecosystems, in the same way as the Paris Agreement sets targets for climate.

The European Union has already set climate change high on the agenda. Now it needs to do the same with protecting biodiversity. Next, the European Commission will present the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy 2030 in the coming weeks.

Ville Niinistö MEP, Greens/EFA rapporteur on the Convention on Biodiversity, comments:

“Researchers have warned that as many as one million species are threatened with extinction. The collapse of ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity threatens our very existence on this planet. This is why we urgently need a new global agreement on how to protect the natural world. It is necessary to set concrete and measurable targets to protect global biodiversity and restore degraded ecosystems in a legally binding global agreement.”

“The COP15 will be a landmark moment for the protection of global biodiversity. The EU must lead the way and adopt binding targets to protect another 30% of land and marine areas by 2030. Besides the quantity but also the quality of protected areas is essential to stop biodiversity loss. Therefore more emphasis needs to be placed on the management of the protected areas. We have to improve, better connect and extend areas such as Natura 2000 sites.”
The Greens/EFA group are calling for:

• Improving biodiversity and climate proofing and asks for target of at least 10% of biodiversity-related spending in the next MFF and to at least double the current funding of the LIFE Programme;
• A global moratorium on gene drive;
• The Commission must propose binding legislation to drastically reduce the use of pesticides by 50% by 2025, with a view of phasing out chemical pesticides in 15 years.