Climate. Historic agreement with goals that Portugal will achieve
Today in Montreal, Canada, most of the world’s countries adopted a Global Biodiversity Framework (QGB) with targets for 2030 and 2050, including the protection of 30% of the planet, on land and in the sea, and the restoration of 30% of degraded areas in terms of biodiversity.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the Secretary of State, who returned to Portugal today from the UN conference, the so-called COP15, classified the agreement reached as historic, the result of four years of work, admitting that until Sunday the work was not easy, especially given the issue of financing biodiversity protection.
João Paulo Catarino said he understood the demands of the poorest countries, in the southern hemisphere, to know how the countries of the northern hemisphere would support, and stressed that the agreement would eventually be reached at dawn today: 20 million dollars until 2025 and 30 million by 2030, transferred to developing countries, to restore ecosystems and classify 30% of territories, on land and at sea.
In the opinion of the person in charge, the classification by 2030 of 30% of protected areas on land, the same amount in the sea, and the restoration of 30% of degraded areas will be the ones presented that will most influence the final result of the agreement.
Goals that, he told Lusa, are easier to achieve in Portugal, as they are already the goals they intended.
“In a terrestrial environment we don’t need 2030, we will definitely manage to reach it probably still in this legislature, that is our objective. In a marine environment it is obviously more difficult, because we are further behind schedule and because we have a much larger marine area than the land area, 18 times greater”, noted João Paulo Catarino.
For the classification of 30% of the Portuguese marine area, studies are still needed, because the objective is not to “classify areas just for the sake of classifying”, because “these areas really have to have a differentiating heritage and natural value, which justifies this classification”, he said.
And he added: “I think that in the marine environment we will also achieve this, I have no doubts, in fact we rely a lot on the contribution of the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira for this”.
Regarding the restoration of degraded ecosystems, the Secretary of State recalled that there is work to be done in protected areas, with more than 80 million euros invested in 19 projects, in 19 natural parks and in the Peneda-Gerês National Park.
The Government, he says, supports strengthening the Environmental Fund to support restoration projects and thus reach 30%. “I think we’re going to be able to do it,” he said.
“Our intention is that we do not need 2030 to reach them, that we manage to do it sooner”, he estimates.
In global terms, the Secretary of State also considered, the commitments reached at dawn today in Canada, in the second part of COP15 because the first took place last year in China, represent the same for biodiversity as 1.5°C (1.5 degrees Celsius) of the Paris Agreement stands for combating climate change. (Do not exceed this global warming value relative to pre-industrial times.)
“In fact, policies overlap a lot and the loss of biodiversity has a lot to do with climate change, one influence the other and that is why it is important to work them together”, he stressed.
And despite the lack of agreement on the reduction of pesticides, João Paulo Catarino said that if the goals agreed today were achieved, the planet will be “much better and healthier” in 2030.