Not Another COP

The Ras Mohammed wall drops from shallow water straight down several hundred feet. The top fifty foot or so is a thriving, healthy coral reef. Within seconds you are surrounded by butterfly and parrotfish, grouper and formidable napoleon wrasse. Tiny anthias and dartfish dance among the coral. A green turtle appears from the depths, surfaces beside us, and dives again. I follow it down, ears trying to keep pace with the descent. At twenty metres or so I give up and watch it disappear.

Each day, even out the front of our budget resort in Sharm El Sheikh, I take an hour to spend time around the coral. This back end of 2022 is a watershed moment for the future of the ocean, with two global conferences to determine the future of climate and biodiversity. Having burned the carbon to reach UNFCCC COP27, it feels fitting to spend as much time as possible with the coral, this incredible sessile animal that is leaving the earth as it warms.

Much of the ocean conservation world is currently assembled in the Canadian city of Montreal. The goal is for the world to agree a binding target that at least 30 per cent of land and ocean will be properly protected by 2030. By the 19^th December, it is hoped that negotiators at the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) COP15 (yes, this has happened 15 times) will have agreed on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This is a route map to stop the loss of global biodiversity by 2030 and recover it by 2050. No small Christmas present to the living things of the world. Probably the best and last chance we’ve got to save them from us.

What does this mean? The ambition for 30 by 30 is not an arbitrary political target (like its predecessor, the Aichi framework, which called for 10% of the ocean to be protected by 2020, which was narrowly missed). 30 by 30 is the point at which leading global scientists agree we have a chance of preserving a healthy, functioning natural ecosystem that supports all life on earth and in the ocean, including us. So this 30% of the ocean under discussion must be highly and fully protected, it must not be another ‘paper park,’ protected only in name – like so much of the UK’s domestic marine conservation network. 8% of the world’s ocean is currently protected but much of that does not translate to on the ground reality.

If one out of every hundred people on the street knows that this global process to protect life on earth is happening, it would be a huge surprise. Somehow with the pace we live at, even if we care which most of us do, it is very hard to engage in these abstract events. Even the word biodiversity is hard, it reduces countless billions of extraordinary living things into one block that we cannot comprehend. If we do not understand things, we will not save them. Which is why a successful outcome for COP15 is likely but by no means certain. Rumours today are that countries are trying to water the target down to 20% or delay the date of completion to 2045.

The world is fresh off the back of the other great treaty negotiations, the UNFCCC, this one held for the 27th time in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh. The Ocean has a home in the UNFCCC for the first time, an Ocean Pavilion in which Blue Marine Foundation is a founding partner. This builds on the ocean being included in the text last year and an interim dialogue being established. This means the ocean is being taken seriously by governments as a climate change solution. That translates to ocean habitats being included in Nationally Determined Contributions - the protection of coastal wetlands - mangroves, seagrass and saltmarsh.

Ultimately COP27 was positive for the ocean, though of course lacking the urgency of commitments that we all want to see. But how many conferences does it take? I understand the frustration of my friends who wonder whether all this talk achieves anything. I would counter that by saying it is the best, and only, chance we have. No matter how many brilliant local conservation initiatives emerge, it is global politics that will determine the fate of life on earth.

Despite how closely linked they are, there is also a huge disconnect between the global processes set up to handle the climate and biodiversity crises. Despite the best efforts of many, they do not talk to each other. 86 different organisations, coordinated by the Ocean & Climate Platform, came together today to make 12 key recommendations. Ultimately, what we all want is political ambition to support a healthy ocean. To do this, bridges need to be built between the biodiversity and climate agendas. And this opportunity, to bring the 30 by 30 target into reality, is the greatest chance of a generation to materially slow the mass extinction we find ourselves in. In the red sea, the abundance of creatures continues to thrive alongside the reef.

In Montreal, invisible to most of us but so significant for the life that surrounds and support us, the clock is ticking for the world to arrive at a solution.