‘I still can’t get over the fact we did it’: what it felt like to seal historic Cop15 deal
Six months ago, nearly every government in the world came together to agree this decade’s global biodiversity targets. They include goals to protect 30% of the planet for nature by 2030, reform $500bn (£395bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and restore 30% of the planet’s degraded terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems.
During the once-a-decade summit in Montreal, it seemed as if the process might fall apart amid walkouts over money, geopolitical tensions and mistrust between the global north and south stemming from last November’s Cop27 climate talks in Egypt.
In the end, participants reached an agreement in the early hours of 20 December. The Guardian has spoken with some of the key figures about how they felt when the deal was sealed and what needs to happen now.
“I suspect that Cop15 will be a high point in my professional and personal life,” says Guilbeault who, alongside the summit president, China’s environment minister, Huang Runqiu, helped to guide negotiations. “To be able to play the role I was playing in Montreal, working with the international community, working very closely with China – a country with whom we’ve had challenging diplomatic relations, to say the least – and to be able to do this on my home turf, was an incredible experience.”
“It was a true win for multilateralism, at a time when we need it the most, and a historic outcome for nature and people,” says Sinkevičius, who was the EU’s representative at the summit. “When I look back, I’m truly proud of what we have achieved in Montreal. We now have the targets and timetables we need to pull nature back from the brink, and to help keep the 1.5C goal alive. But we have to be brutally realistic. Success is not guaranteed by an international agreement.”
Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, head of the Brazilian delegatio
Just hours after the deal had formally passed, it came close to falling apart. Ève Bazaiba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s environment minister, threatened to throw the integrity of the agreement into doubt after China’s summit president appeared to ignore DRC’s objections to the text and forced it through. But the international debut of the negotiating coalition between Brazil, Indonesia and the DRC – the “Opec of rainforests” – helped to avert disaster hours later, with De Athayde helping coordinate a symbolic handshake between Bazaiba and Huang Runqiu. For many, this was the moment the agreement was truly struck.
“There had been disappointment within the developing-country community about the outcome on money. Some were still reluctant to agree to the package. We were happy to be able to help,” says De Athayde, recalling the moment when the DRC dropped its opposition, to the applause of the negotiating hall. “[The handshake] felt very good. In the end, our delegation was both happy to have contributed to a deal and also very relieved that Cop was over.”
Basile van Havre, co-chair of the negotiations
The path to Cop15 was heavily disrupted by the pandemic. At points, it looked like it would never happen. The summit was meant to take place in October 2020 but was repeatedly pushed back and eventually moved to Montreal from Kunming due to China’s Covid rules. Van Havre, who co-chaired the process with Francis Ogwal, oversaw days of slow talks from 2020 to 2022 and tried to keep momentum in the process over Zoom calls, with some negotiators having to get up in the early hours to participate.
“I still can’t get over the fact we did it,” he says. “My wife was reminding me that she came to see me for a few days in Montreal. One night, I was crawling into bed around 3.30am and she asked how it’s going. I said: ‘Not well.’ Which is very unusual for me. I really thought we were not going to get there. And in the end we did and it was an incredible, incredible accomplishment.”
Li Shuo, Greenpeace policy expert
Now, there is the difficult task of implementing the goals. Governments have never met a single target they have set for themselves on avoiding biodiversity loss. Changing that has to be the focus, according toLi. “The success of Cop15 is defined by what happens afterwards. It is not just what governments say that matters, but what they will do to implement the global biodiversity framework. Six months after the monumental nature summit in Montreal, much remains to be done to sustain the momentum.”
David Cooper, acting UN biodiversity chief
Cooper, who says Cop15 was an “all-consuming” experience, is hopeful that this decade will mark a change in how governments approach nature. “I don’t have to explain what the agreement means, even with the business community. There’s an interest by all of these constituencies to be part of it.
“The biggest thing we need now is courageous governance. The actions that are needed will impact all sectors. Of course, we believe that they’ll benefit them all in the medium to longer term. But in the short term, there’s going to be cost and there’s going to be vested interest fighting back. So this will only succeed with leadership.”
cover photo:‘I still can’t get over the fact we did it’: what it felt like to seal historic Cop15 deal
