‘No extra money’ for biodiversity protection
European politicians warn that there will be no additional funding for developing nations.
The European Union looks set to disappoint developing countries by turning down requests for more money to protect biodiversity outside the EU.
Environment ministers from up to 190 countries are to meet in Nagoya, Japan, next month (18-29 October) to discuss how to protect biodiversity in the world’s increasingly polluted seas, disappearing wetlands and endangered plants and animals. The renewed push on nature protection comes after failure to meet a UN target to halt global biodiversity loss by 2010 became official last May.
Developing countries have been putting pressure on the EU to provide funds to protect habitats at this meeting, but European politicians are warning that there will be no extra money.
“They are asking for more financing. That’s normal. But we have a problem, we don’t have it,” said Joke Schauvliege, the Flemish minister for environment, who is leading discussions with her counterparts from other member states. “We are now in a financial situation where we are not in a position to put more money on the table,” she told journalists at a biodiversity conference in Ghent, Belgium.
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Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for environment, told European Voice that the EU was already doing a lot to tackle the issue. “We are the major global donor, our fast-track financing commitment on climate change [worth €7.2 billion over 2010-12] will certainly help also.”
Finance would be one of three main issues to be discussed at Nagoya, he said, along with targets and a new protocol on “access and benefit sharing”, fair access for all to the genetic riches locked in plants, animals and micro-organisms.
José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, is anxious that Europe ‘learns the lessons’ of the Copenhagen climate conference, which resulted in an agreement that fell well short of initial hopes and left Europe looking weak.
The Commission is wary of handing out “blank cheques” when the ambition of a new biodiversity target is unclear, suggested one senior official. “First [agree] a target and then see how we realise that target,” said Ladislav Miko from the Commission’s environment department.
Experts cautioned against boiling the issues down to just funding. Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, said that policymakers also needed to think more about Europe’s hefty ecological footprint – the extent that global biodiversity loss and strain on natural resources is fuelled by European lifestyles. The EU had a duty not to contribute to biodiversity loss in developing countries, she said, citing biofuel policy as one potential risk. “Sometimes just simply saying that we are not going to put that pressure on a natural resource is as important as funding,” she said.
The Commission has promised to publish ideas on halting biodiversity loss within the EU shortly after the Nagoya talks. In March, environment ministers vowed to halt biodiversity loss in the EU by 2020. The same target but with a 2010 deadline was missed.
But the Commission’s environment department spies a window of opportunity, with reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy also getting under way – two policies long under fire for failing to prevent habitat loss, pesticide pollution and overfishing.
“Biodiversity is not just about protecting species. It is also about nature’s ability to produce the goods and services that we need,” Potočnik told delegates. “We have to go beyond lip service and truly integrate biodiversity into our policies.”