Humans risk living in an empty world, warns UN biodiversity chiefhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/humans-risk-living-in-an-empty-world-warns-un-biodiversity-chief-aoe by Patrick Greenfield Excerpts:
Humanity will have given up on planet Earth if world leaders cannot reach an agreement this year to stop the mass extinction of wildlife and destruction of life-supporting ecosystems, the United Nation’s new biodiversity chief has warned.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the acting executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, has implored governments
to ensure 2020 is not just another “year of conferences” on the ongoing ecological destruction of the planet, urging countries to take definitive action on deforestation, pollution and the climate crisis.
The ongoing destruction of life-supporting ecosystems such as coral reefs and rainforests means humans risk living in an “empty world” with “catastrophic” consequences for society
“People’s lives depend on biodiversity in ways that are not always apparent or appreciated. Human health ultimately depends on ecosystem services: the availability of fresh water, fuel, food sources. All these are prerequisites for human health and livelihoods,”
In May last year, the world’s leading scientists warned that nature is disappearing at a rate tens to hundreds of times higher than the average for the past 10m years. Experts have previously warned that humans are driving the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, cautioning there is a short time to act.
The commitments in the draft text, which is expected to be adopted by governments in October at a crucial UN summit in the Chinese city of Kunming, have been kept intentionally modest
it means the global community will have said: let biodiversity loss continue, let people continue to die, let the degradation continue, deforestation continue, pollution continue, and we’ll have given up as an international community to save the planet.
“Our children are asking what climate are they going to inherit from us if the planet they are seeing is polluted. The ocean they are seeing is full of plastic, the forest they are told to be seeing becomes bare land, the consumption patterns are leading to more pollution.