The COP-15 Biodiversity Summit in Montreal, co-hosted by China and Canada, which started Dec. 7, is lurching toward a Flop15 by the intended closing date of Dec. 19, amidst general wrangling over what kind of framework for a “nature positive” future can be agreed upon. The long draft text in circulation has the usual kinds of crazed proposals, such as the infamous “30×30” plan, that nations should cut their human economic use of 30% of their water and land by 2030, in order to “balance out” nature-harming humans, with nature-benefitting wild creatures and plant life. Advocates of this barely disguised depopulation program call for “50× 50"!
In the early hours of Dec. 14, India, Indonesia, and other nations staged a walkout of the talks; they later returned. Of the 20 points of the draft Framework on Biodiversity, only 5 had been agreed to by today, after 10 days of meetings. Today minister-level representatives arrive for the three days of Dec. 15-17, and they may concur on a few more of the points, or not.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, known for his ability to get into the swing of things, declared at the opening of the Montreal summit, that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction” by ruining habitats and destroying other species.
This meeting is COP15 Part Two, after Part One was held in October 2021, in China, as a hybrid in-person and online event; it was then decided that Canada would co-host the finishing session in person this year, given China’s stronger anti-COVID-19 measures.
