Published October 30,2024
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UN chief Antonio Guterres known as Wednesday for “peace among ourselves” to be able to save the planet, as devastating wars rage in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan.
“We need peace with nature and we need peace among ourselves,” Guterres informed journalists in Cali, Colombia, the place he attended a UN summit that’s in search of methods to “halt and reverse” humankind’s destruction of Earth’s bountiful sources.
“We need to make peace among ourselves because wars… have some of the most devastating impacts on biodiversity, on climate and on pollution,” the secretary basic stated.
He reiterated requires a “just peace” in Ukraine and a right away ceasefire in Gaza, with “massive” humanitarian help to the individuals there and the discharge of all hostages held by Hamas since its assault on Israel greater than a 12 months in the past.
Guterres additionally underlined the necessity for a peace in Lebanon “that respects Lebanese sovereignty and Lebanese territorial integrity and paves the way for a political solution,” after Israel expanded its army offensive into that nation.
He known as for “peace in Sudan, where an enormous tragedy exists.”
The secretary basic joined 5 presidents and dozens of ministers in Cali for a two-day “high-level segment” in search of so as to add impetus to the biggest-ever UN biodiversity summit, which began on October 21 and runs till Friday.
– ‘Existential disaster’ –
The sixteenth Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) should make progress on the creation of monitoring and funding mechanisms to realize 23 targets agreed in Canada two years in the past to place the brakes on nature destruction.
A report issued by nature watchdogs Monday stated solely 17.6 p.c of land and inland waters, and eight.4 p.c of the ocean and coastal areas, are protected and conserved.
And an replace of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List discovered greater than 46,000 plant and animal species out of some 166,000 assessed are threatened with extinction.
Negotiators in Cali, nevertheless, stay caught on modalities of funding, and on how greatest to share the earnings of digitally sequenced plant and animal genetic information — utilized in medicines and cosmetics — with the communities they arrive from.
The UN chief reiterated his warning that humanity confronted an “existential crisis,” saying COP16 delegates should make haste to handle “the permanent neglect of biodiversity.”
Another aim of the 2002 Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework is to ramp up biodiversity financing to $200 billion per 12 months by 2030.
“Obviously finance is essential, but finance is not enough,” stated Guterres.
“What we need is a political priority at government level, a political priority at the multilateral institutions level, and a clear commitment of the private sector.”
He added: “Without defeating the biodiversity disaster, we won’t defeat the local weather disaster, we won’t defeat the air pollution disaster and we are going to condemn our world to a scenario of utmost poverty within the pure setting.
“This is totally unacceptable.”
Source: www.anews.com.tr