A PARIS AGREEMENT FOR BIODIVERSITY ?

In October 2020, the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will meet in China to review the achievement and delivery of the strategic plan. At the conference (COP15), they are expected to adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, with conservation goals for the next decade. The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has expressed the ambition that the EU 'lead the world' at this COP, as it did at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. As part of the European Green Deal, the Commission has pledged to present, by March 2020, a biodiversity strategy for 2030, followed up in 2021 by measures targeting the main drivers of biodiversity loss. The envisaged strategy would include an outline of the EU's position for the COP, with global biodiversity protection targets, commitments to address the causes of biodiversity loss in the EU, with measurable objectives, and measures to restore damaged ecosystems. In January 2020, the European Parliament is due to vote a resolution in view of COP15. The motion for a resolution, adopted on 3 December 2019 by its Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, stresses the need for the international biodiversity framework to take the form of a legally binding agreement. It also urges the Commission to design a biodiversity strategy for 2030 that sets legally binding targets for the EU and its Member States.