Environment and Climate Minister Maria Ohisalo (Greens/EFA) commented on the agreement reached in Montreal to halt the loss of biodiversity.
The United Nations Conference on Nature in Montreal, Canada, has reached agreement on negotiations to set international targets to halt biodiversity loss.
Among other things, the nearly 200 countries involved in the treaty agreed to protect 30% of the world’s land and sea surface by 2030. Read more in our story here:
– Now we have achieved a truly historic result, which perhaps many people did not even dare to expect. Of course, we hoped for the best.
In addition to protection, the parties commit to ensure that at least 30 percent of the world’s land and sea areas are within the scope of restoration in 2030. Ohisalo also considers it important to agree that efforts should be made to reduce financing that is harmful to nature.
– Subsidies that are harmful to the environment are being cut down with a quick hand, and in general, we are trying to direct funding flows to more sustainable targets, so that we can get rid of funding that is harmful to the environment, commented Ohisalo.
The countries of the world have already tried to stop the loss of nature in the past, but the goals have not been reached. First, the goal was to stop the destruction of nature by 2010. Then the deadline was narrowed to 2020. In the negotiations that have now ended, the goal was set to 2030.
Ohisalo hopes that the states would take the decided framework seriously and include it in all the work they do. He believes that the situation is different now than before.
– This is an important and long-awaited agreement. The knowledge base on the state of nature and the deterioration of the state of nature has strengthened enormously in recent years. We really have the opportunity to initiate more of these actions because we have research and data from different parts of the world. I believe that important steps forward have been taken.