UN high-seas biodiversity treaty struggles to depart port

A two-week negotiating session on a treaty to guard the excessive seas wraps up Friday, however UN observers have been holding their breath with many factors remaining contentious between member states.

After 15 years, together with 4 prior formal classes, negotiators have but to succeed in a legally binding settlement to handle the rising environmental and economic challenges involving the high seas, also referred to as international waters—a zone which encompasses nearly half the planet.

Many had hoped that this fifth session, which started on August 15 on the United Nations headquarters in New York, can be the final and yield a closing textual content on “the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction,” or BBNJ for brief.

But a brand new model of the treaty—distributed to delegates on Friday morning simply hours earlier than the official finish of negotiations, and seen by AFP—nonetheless included many paragraphs open to negotiations.

A gathering scheduled for midday (1600 GMT) was canceled to permit consultations to proceed, which observers recommend may run into Saturday.

One of essentially the most delicate points revolves across the sharing of doable earnings gained from creating genetic resources in worldwide waters, the place pharmaceutical, chemical and beauty firms hope to seek out miracle medication, merchandise or cures.

Such expensive analysis at sea is basically the prerogative of wealthy nations, however creating international locations don’t wish to be not noted of potential windfall earnings drawn from marine resources that belong to nobody.

The new draft textual content appears to nonetheless facet with the creating nations, with a requirement that two p.c of all future gross sales be redistributed, finally rising to eight p.c.

Greenpeace’s Will McCallum accuses the EU, United States and Canada of rejecting the proposal.

“It’s not even real money. It’s just hypothetical money one day. That is why it is really frustrating,” he instructed AFP.

The EU pushed again on that characterization, with one European negotiator telling AFP: “We are willing to contribute to the BBNJ agreement through various funding sources, which in our view shall include a fair sharing of benefits from marine genetic resources globally.”

Similar problems with fairness between the Global North and South come up in different worldwide negotiations, equivalent to on local weather change, the place developing nations really feel outsized harms from international warming and check out in useless to get wealthier nations to assist pay to offset these impacts.

‘Too near fail’

Some are eager for an settlement.

“This is the final stage and delegates are working hard to come to an agreement,” stated Liz Karan with the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts.

Jihyun Lee, a youth ambassador with conservation group the High Seas Alliance, stated: “We’re too close to fail.”

The excessive seas start on the border of countries’ unique financial zones (EEZs)—which by worldwide regulation attain not more than 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from every nation’s coast—and are below no state’s jurisdiction.

Sixty p.c of the world’s oceans fall below this class.

And whereas wholesome marine ecosystems are essential to the way forward for humanity, significantly to restrict global warming, just one p.c of worldwide waters are protected.

One of the important thing pillars of an eventual BBNJ treaty is to permit the creation of marine protected areas, which many countries hope will cowl 30 p.c of the Earth’s ocean by 2030.

“Without establishing protections in this vast area, we will not be able to meet our ambitious and necessary 30 by 30 goal,” stated US State Department official Maxine Burkett at a press convention.

But delegations nonetheless disagree on the method for creating these protected areas, in addition to on the way to implement a requirement for environmental influence assessments earlier than new exercise on the excessive seas.

“I think they have made a lot of progress in the last two weeks on issues that were very controversial,” stated Klaudija Cremers, a researcher on the IDDRI suppose tank, which like a number of different NGOs has a seat with observer standing on the negotiations.

She instructed AFP that the ultimate talks Friday “could be the push to get an agreement.”

© 2022 AFP