World 'cannot wait a decade to act on biodiversity crisis', minister tells Cop15

Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan: 'Nature is in peril.'

Nature is deteriorating before our eyes and the world does not have another decade to take action.

That is according to Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan, as he addressed the biggest global biodiversity summit in more than 10 years in Canada.

Mr Noonan told the Cop15 summit in Montreal that Ireland is committed to supporting an "ambitious global biodiversity framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss", but claimed "we are not waiting for these negotiations to act" back at home.

Speaking "with a sense of urgency and deep concern", Mr Noonan said: "Nature is in peril, the complex web of life on which we all depend, the product of 3.6bn years of evolution, is deteriorating before our very eyes, and we do not have another decade. We simply don’t."

More than 10,000 scientists and 196 countries are attending Cop15 for what is being called the "Paris Agreement for nature", referring to the landmark agreement from 2015 in the French capital. The 2015 Paris Agreement set the 1.5C temperature increase limit goal that scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.

Mr Noonan and representatives from the Department of Housing and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) are in Montreal on behalf of Ireland.

Deadlocked talks

There have been tense moments at the event, as countries grapple with each other over who will pay for the protection of nature and biodiversity, which is experiencing an unprecedented crisis. 

The deadlocked talks so far led to a walkout earlier this week from delegates of developing countries, who are unhappy with the lack of commitments made by more developed countries toward funding for nature and biodiversity restoration.

Mr Noonan added in his address: "The Kunming Declaration sets out our planet’s collective ambition for the conservation and restoration of the living world. The weight of that ambition — 550 gigatons of global biomass; our ancient biological inheritance; the very fabric of our common future — is on our shoulders. May we have the strength and the courage to bear that burden, and the wisdom to seize its opportunity."

The Kumming Decaration refers to a pledge from 100 countries in October 2021 that called for "urgent and integrated action" on biodiversity considerations in economies. However, the question of biodiversity finance was not agreed at the time.

Mr Noonan told reporters before his address that he sympathised with those who walked out of negotiations, because they are from countries that have had their biodiversity resources "plundered by the consumption of the West, consumption by rich countries".

"I think they're absolutely right to stick to their guns in terms of what they are demanding because it's their natural resources, that are being taken to fuel consumption patterns in Western countries," he said.

Just like the Irish delegation was lauded on the world stage at the Cop27 climate change summit in Egypt last month for helping to broker a global deal, Mr Noonan said the Irish delegation at Cop15 could also have a major role to play.