In the wee small hours: a story of COP15

Aran O’Carroll JD FRCGS, National Director, Environment, Royal Canadian Geographical Society

on clear and measurable targets, and the recognition shown in Sharm el-Sheikh to the critical intersections between the climate and nature crises.

In 2021, in advance of the original date of the nature Convention’s COP15 and the climate Convention’s COP26, geographical societies from around the world, including the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, National Geographic Society, and even the Russian and Chinese geographical societies, had come together to call on world leaders to redouble their efforts and recognize the intersections of the nature and climate crises.

It was the wee small hours. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, the 1,000 delegates once more stumbled into the dark confines of the Palais des congrès de Montréal. And then, in the hushed silence of baited breaths and the stillness of the city before dawn, they voted. One hundred and eighty-eight ‘yays’ were recorded as the clock ticked past 3am. The room burst into raucous cheers.

Of the 196 signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 188 countries confirmed their support for a remarkable deal to conserve and restore a third of the planet’s lands and waters by 2030. And in doing so, affirming and respecting the critical importance of Indigenous leadership in the effort. The United States and the Vatican, neither a signatory to the Convention, both signalled their active support.

Originally slated to be held in Kunming, China, in October 2021, the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties on the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) was derailed by the global COVID-19 crisis and China’s stringent public health policies. It had to be rescheduled and relocated. Canada, the original signatory to the Convention at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the City of Montréal, the hometown of the UN’s Secretariat to the Convention, quickly stepped forward with an offer to host the Convention, in December 2022.

A monument to 1970s ‘neo-brutalist’ architecture in Old Montréal, the Palais des congrès de Montréal’s bright colours were the venue for the winter Convention. Despite recent Chinese hostage-taking of Canadian diplomats, little attention was paid to the frosty state of China’s relations with Canada or the wider world. Nor was any notice taken of the fact that the congrès was built on the expropriated ruins of Montréal’s former Chinatown. Indeed China, the Chair, and Canada, the host, played nice and appeared to work constructively together to drive the Convention to a successful conclusion in dramatic overtime fashion – the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Ultimately coming together shortly after the world had gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to advance the UN Convention on Climate Change at COP27, the nature negotiations in Montréal appeared inspired and motivated by the begrudging progress emerging from the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention, the UNFCCC’s focus

“Nature and biodiversity are dying the death of a billion cuts. And humanity is paying the price for betraying its closest friend,” said Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, as she implored the delegates in the opening plenary to strive hard to find solutions to the nature crisis.

In the lead-up to the Convention in Montréal, great frustrations rippled through the international conservation community as advance negotiations had failed to produce a consensus. Delegates at the opening of the Convention had been handed a draft text heavily obscured with lengthy sections of bracketed text. Optimism for a positive outcome in Montréal was in short supply. The Russian war in Ukraine cast a further pall on the global community.

Applying the analogy of the Cold War Doomsday Clock to the nature crisis, it would not be unreasonable to suggest we are minutes from ‘midnight’. Over one million species are now threatened with extinction, and the rates of critical habitat loss and the resultant endangerment of species are accelerating. We are only beginning to appreciate the significance of these same habitats to global climate regulation and the sequestration of greenhouse gases. For the survival of our planet, COP15 needs to be a turning point. One of the communities living at the intersection of the nature and climate change crises is the Nlakaʼpamux Nation from the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Chief Byron Spinks, former Chief of the Nlakaʼpamux Nation, spoke quietly, powerfully, and profoundly at the Conference about how his ancestral territories had been destructively mined, logged, and now burned in a ‘heat dome’ that saw the entire village of Lytton burn to the ground in 20 minutes in 2021 climate-change-induced temperatures exceeding 52°C, and be subsequently inundated by historic flooding from a 2022 climate-change-induced ‘atmospheric river’.

Despite these grave injustices to the Nlakaʼpamux people and their traditional territories, Chief Byron Spinks came to Montréal with Canadian Geographic and partners to tell the story of their efforts to establish an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area and establish an Indigenous Guardianship programme to help conserve and restore their traditional territories. Their appeal to the Conference parties was deeply moving.

Standing in the warmth of an Innu shaputuan, or longhouse, temporarily erected on the shores of the mighty St Lawrence River in the Old Port of Montréal, I had the great pleasure to meet old friends and colleagues, including the remarkable Canadian Geographic partner, Valérie Courtois of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, an Innu herself, of the Mashteutiatsh from north central Québec. Standing amidst Indigenous leaders from across the country now known as Canada, Valérie spoke passionately of the leadership of Indigenous communities as stewards of nature and vital agents in the fight against climate change. There were enthusiastic celebrations of the momentum behind Indigenous nations’ efforts, and the historic Canadian investments in conservation and Indigenous Guardianship announced at COP15, totalling over $800 million Canadian dollars.

Scotland’s leadership in rewilding or restoration – the first European country to make a restoration pledge under the global restoration initiative, the Bonn Convention –arguably helped incentivize Canada and others to adopt the Bonn Challenge during the COP15 negotiations. While Canada is a nation renowned for its globally rare intact wilderness, it has pressing restoration needs as well in the Interior of British Columbia, the native grasslands of the Prairies, Carolinian forests of central Canada, and the Acadian forests of Atlantic Canada, to name a few. Will COP15 and the many significant pledges that were made in the snowy streets of Old Montréal be the turning point nature needs? It remains to be seen. Now we must turn to action, remaining steadfast in our commitments as geographical societies to redouble our efforts to support, encourage, celebrate, and inspire efforts to achieve the lofty goals agreed to in the wee hours in the bowels of Montréal’s Palais on that snowy night before Christmas 2022.