Biodiversity Agreement Reached At UN Conference In Montreal

Negotiators at the COP-15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal say they have finalized an agreement to stop and reverse the destruction of nature.

An announcement earlier this morning said that the nations gathered have agreed to four goals and 23 targets, including protecting 30 percent of the world's land, water, and marine areas by 2030.

"Many of us wanted more things in the text and more ambition, but we got an ambitious package...." Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said. "We have an agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, to work on restoration, to reduce the use of pesticides. This is tremendous progress."

There is also a pledge to reduce subsidies deemed harmful to nature while helping developing countries with $20-30 billion a year.

The new agreement is titled the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework - after the official host cities in China and Canada.

"We have in our hands a package which I think can guide us as we all work together to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and put biodiversity on the path to recovery for the benefit of all people in the world," Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu told delegates before the package was adopted to rapturous applause just before dawn. "We can be truly proud."

The final agreement came after nearly two weeks of negotiations among 196 countries who are part of the UN biodiversity convention.

They were seeking a new deal to halt the human destruction of nature and to begin restoring what has already been lost.

As a result, the United Nations says three-quarters of the world's land has been altered by human activities and one million species face extinction this century.