The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, heads the Spanish delegation participating in the World Summit on Biological Diversity, which is being held until 29 November in Sharm-El Sheick (Egypt). Morán has spoken at the High-Level Segment, which precedes the start of the fourteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP14) and the meetings of the Parties to its two Protocols, the Nagoya and Cartagena Protocols.

Under the slogan “Investing in biodiversity for people and for the planet”, this meeting is an important step on the road to halting global biodiversity loss, which should culminate in two years’ time at the Beijing summit with the establishment of an ambitious post-2020 framework. In this regard, Morán stressed that the European Union must lead the process to make the meeting in Beijing in 2020 a success: “We cannot continue down the path of biodiversity loss, so it is essential to place this issue at the centre of political agendas so that, in two years’ time, we can present ambitious objectives that provide an effective response to this complex challenge”.

The European Union’s position at the Sharm-El Sheick meeting is that the process for the adoption of such a post-2020 framework should allow for the development of ambitious, realistic and appropriate, measurable and time-bound targets that build on and reinforce the current targets of the so-called Aichi Targets and that progress on these targets can be effectively monitored. “The planet cannot afford to continue losing biodiversity at this accelerated rate, which brings us closer to the sixth mass extinction, as the scientific community has already warned,” said Morán.

In the same way that the international community has been able to equip itself with a multilateral framework on climate change, the time has come for us to pay attention to biodiversity and be able to set ambitious goals that will allow us to halt the loss of species, habitats and ecosystems, without which it will be impossible to guarantee our well-being and the Sustainable Development Goals.” he added.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is the only international instrument that comprehensively addresses biodiversity conservation. The three objectives of the Convention are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources.