UN Secretary-General António Guterres asserted on Friday that "subsidizing fossil fuels is suicide," in a speech delivered at a summit of world leaders held days before the opening of the 17th Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity (COP17) in Armenia.
Guterres stated that "fossil fuels are making the planet boil and are a catastrophe for biodiversity," given the difficulty countries face in reducing their support for activities harmful to nature, in fulfillment of a pledge made four years ago.
Efforts in this area are being assessed during the 17th Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity, which begins Monday in Yerevan and continues until October 30.
Among the 23 pledges made by nearly 200 countries at the COP15 conference in Montreal in 2022 was a commitment to reduce subsidies for harmful activities by at least $500 billion annually.
The UN Secretary-General said, “The harsh reality is that we are spending our money in the wrong direction. For every dollar invested in protecting nature, $30 is spent on destroying it.”
Countries are supposed to achieve their goals by 2030, but they are behind schedule. The Conference of the Parties in Armenia provides an opportunity for a progress assessment and to explore ways to accelerate implementation.
The Secretariat of the Convention, which organizes the Conferences of the Parties every two years, prepared a report on countries' commitments to achieving the targets set for 2030.
While the Convention's Executive Secretary, Astrid Schumacher, noted last August that "the elements in the global report show promising efforts with regard to the protection goals," she observed that "other elements, related to the means of implementation, have made only slow progress, such as resource mobilization, redirecting harmful subsidies, and inclusive governance."
The Convention on Biological Diversity has 196 States Parties, including the European Union, but not the United States.
0 Comments