BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Global environmental leaders gathered Monday in Cali, Colombia to assess the world’s plummeting biodiversity levels and commitments by countries to protect plants, animals and critical habitats.
The two-week United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP16, is a follow-up to the 2022 Montreal meetings where 196 countries signed a historic global treaty to protect biodiversity.
The accord includes 23 measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030.
In opening remarks on Sunday, Colombia’s environment minister and COP16 president Susana Muhamad said the conference is an opportunity “to collect the experience that has passed through this planet from all civilizations, from all cultures, from all knowledge … to generate livable, relatively stable conditions for a new society that will be forged in the light of the crisis.”