Materials

Will delegates from 192 countries at the UN Conference on Biodiversity be able to reach agreement on funding for $484 billion a year for nature solutions? The first meetings of the UN international conference on biodiversity, COP15, will begin in Montreal on 5 December. Although the event is taking place in the shadow of the recently concluded Sharm el-Sheikh climate summit, the subject matter of its discussions may prove far more significant than at COP27. Journalists, immersed in the details of preparations for the planet’s most important environmental forum, are already calling the main document to be signed by all countries the “Paris of Montreal”, thus underlining the fundamental importance of the forthcoming event. Will participants at the UN conference be able to sign the post-2020 Global Framework Convention on Biodiversity and identify sources of finance for it?