25/03/2020 (Agence Europe) – The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15), which was scheduled to take place in October in China (Kunming), will be postponed, possibly to 2021, because of COVID-19. The United Nations announced on 25 March that two preparatory meetings originally scheduled for May have been postponed to August (1-30) and September (1-6) respectively. And the UN added that as a result, the date of the COP meeting and other related meetings “will need to be adjusted”. COP15 is the meeting where the post-2020 global framework for global biodiversity is to be agreed. The European Commission’s Communication on the EU’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and COP15 is still on the institution’s provisional agenda for 29 April, but the date has yet to be confirmed (see EUROPE 12450/31). (AN)