Is This the “Paris Moment” for Global Biodiversity Protection?
In two recent international bio-diversity accords, science is at once both prominent and diminished. Last December, the UN Convention on Biodiversity’s COP 15 agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Framework. In March, the Convention on the Law of the Sea reached an agreement to protect marine ecosystems. Both measures seek to halt the ongoing massive extinction of species, food webs, biota and biomes unambiguously caused by humans, and documented in an overwhelming scientific literature.
The Kunming-Montreal Framework cites to the “Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,” itself grounded in thousands of technical papers and involving hundreds of scientists. Similarly, the Marine Biodiversity Framework requires “use of the best available science and scientific information,” language that harks back to the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
These words seem hopeful, but the reality is more hollow. Neither agreement has a real enforcement mechanism, triggered when parties act contrary to best available science. In stark contrast, the ESA not only provides specific statutory enforcement mechanisms, but there is also well-developed case law enforcing the ESA’s requirement of good science. It is especially ironic to critique these international agreements by citing favorably to American biodiversity law. The United States has yet to ratify the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity or the ensuing Cartagena Protocol (on biotechnology safety) and the Nagoya Protocol (on sharing of genetic resources and profits). It is unlikely to ratify either of these new agreements.
Moreover, the marine treaty language requiring good science is buried in a lengthy list of other guiding principles, including ”equity,” “polluter pays,” “ecosystem[s],” and “precaution,” all worthy goals. Yet ours is a world of limited resources. By pursuing multiple goals, these treaties inevitably diminish, albeit implicitly and indirectly, resources and the related attention needed to develop good science.
My concern is not the short shrift given to science. In setting environmental policy, the institution of science and individual scientists deserve no more voice than any other institution, interest group, or individual. What does deserve great deference is reality. Knowledge derived from scientific research and inquiry—fully acknowledging its uncertainty, caveats, and errors—is perhaps the premier means our society has of understanding reality.
The Marine Biodiversity Framework seeks to not only protect genetic richness, but also research. It includes Article 9 (access to high seas for biodiversity research), Article 10 (required notice prior to undertaking scientific research), and Article 11 (sharing of research samples, sequences, and results).
These treaty provisions need to be read in light of the history of scientific colonialism. Though recent decades have seen significant reforms, there is a history of western scientists undertaking biodiversity research in Brazil, Mexico, and other countries without collaborating with local researchers. Likewise, there is a sordid history of commercialization of genetic resources coopted from Indigenous peoples.
The marine treaty provisions pertaining to commercialization of genetic resources pertain not just to scientific research and knowledge, but money. This is an entirely different beast. Though the full story is complicated, lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry played an important role in the failure of the United States to ratify past biodiversity treaties. Any serious attempt by the Senate to ratify the marine treaty will entail debate on the ways it limits multinational corporations from owning genetic intellectual property.
Elizabeth Mrema, then of the Convention on Biodiversity, has referred to the December agreement as the “Paris Moment for biodiversity.” The analogy is apt—and I would focus the reader’s attention on the utter and complete failure of the Paris climate accords to have any measurable impact on the inexorable rise in atmospheric carbon.
Likewise, since the Biodiversity Convention came into force after the Earth Summit, held in Brazil, there has been a significant reduction in area and ecological integrity of tropical rain forests. Worse, because of climate change, the South American rain forest is close to tipping to savannah, a less diverse ecosystem.
It is easy for diplomats and lawyers to write words. Yet it is not enough for treaties, statutes, and rules to cite science, and to provide a legal or administrative process for science to enter environmental decisionmaking. These two biodiversity agreements admittedly accomplish that.
These biodiversity treaties are state-of-the-art, and it is unrealistic to think we will ever see international biodiversity agreements qualitatively better. Yet the Amazon rain forest continues to burn. The dilemma humanity faces is that the best we can do is nowhere good enough.
Is This the “Paris Moment” for Global Biodiversity Protection?
