[D66] Humans risk living in an empty world, warns UN biodiversity chief

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Humans risk living in an empty world, warns UN biodiversity chief
By
Patrick Greenfield
theguardian.com
4 min
View Original

Humanity will have given up on planet Earth if world leaders cannot 
reach an agreement this year to stop the mass extinction of wildlife and 
destruction of life-supporting ecosystems, the United Nation’s new 
biodiversity chief has warned.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the acting executive secretary of the UN 
Convention on Biological Diversity, has implored governments to ensure 
2020 is not just another “year of conferences” on the ongoing ecological 
destruction of the planet, urging countries to take definitive action on 
deforestation, pollution and the climate crisis.

The warning comes on the eve of the Davos World Economic Forum, where 
biodiversity loss has been highlighted as the third biggest risk to the 
world in terms of likelihood and severity this year, ahead of infectious 
diseases, terror attacks and interstate conflict.

The ongoing destruction of life-supporting ecosystems such as coral 
reefs and rainforests means humans risk living in an “empty world” with 
“catastrophic” consequences for society, according to Mrema, who is 
responsible for spearheading a Paris-style agreement for nature that 
will be negotiated this year.

“People’s lives depend on biodiversity in ways that are not always 
apparent or appreciated. Human health ultimately depends on ecosystem 
services: the availability of fresh water, fuel, food sources. All these 
are prerequisites for human health and livelihoods,” she told the 
Guardian in her first major interview since taking up the role.

In May last year, the world’s leading scientists warned that nature is 
disappearing at a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average 
for the past 10m years. Experts have previously warned that humans are 
driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, cautioning 
there is a short time to act.

“Business, local communities, civil society, the youth, all of us led by 
governments must take action. We have been talking of action for many 
years. Really, we need transformative action to make a difference,” 
Mrema said.

Last week, the long-awaited draft of a Paris-style UN agreement on 
nature was published for the first time, calling for a commitment to 
protect at least 30% of the planet, controls on invasive species and 
pollution from plastic waste and excess nutrients to be reduced by 50%.

The commitments in the draft text, which is expected to be adopted by 
governments in October at a crucial UN summit in the Chinese city of 
Kunming, have been kept intentionally modest after the failure of the 
international agreement on biodiversity conservation made for the 
previous decade.

Some campaigners have criticised the draft agreement, insisting that 
governments must do more to protect the planet. Mrema said she had hoped 
negotiators would create something more ambitious than the current proposal.

When asked what would happen if governments did not take sufficient 
action, Mrema said: “The risks will be major. One is that we will not 
have listened to the science and the evidence provided. Because we will 
not have listened, it means the global community will have said: let 
biodiversity loss continue, let people continue to die, let the 
degradation continue, deforestation continue, pollution continue, and 
we’ll have given up as an international community to save the planet.

“I hope that’s not where any of us would want to be.”

Mrema, who took over the role in November last year after former chief 
Cristiana Paşca Palmer stepped down, recalled growing up in Tanzania, 
where her home looked out on Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in 
Africa.

“When I grew up as I child, I could see and hear water flowing in the 
banana plantations. But now I am an adult, those streams have completely 
dried. Every time I deal with biodiversity issues, I reflect what I used 
to see as I grew up and went to school. What I see today, I cannot 
compare the two. More devastation now, the water is no longer there, the 
bush, the forest, the entire area is now bare,” she said.

The UN has organised a youth summit this April in Miyazaki, Japan, which 
the organisation hopes environmental activists such as Greta Thunberg 
will attend.

“Being an adult, I can say that we have failed and are failing our 
children and the youth,” Mrema said.

“Our children are asking what climate are they going to inherit from us 
if the planet they are seeing is polluted. The ocean they are seeing is 
full of plastic, the forest they are told to be seeing becomes bare 
land, the consumption patterns are leading to more pollution.

“The children know exactly what their rights are, what they want and 
what they expect from their parents,” she said.

“Whatever is negotiated today will affect our children more than us as 
adults. They want to make sure that the world left to them was not just 
decided by us but that they were also part of the decision-making process.”