Work is intensifying in EU Council bodies to give substance to the ambition of urgent action required to protect and restore biodiversity and its ecosystems by 2030, both in the EU and globally.
Draft conclusions were agreed at EU Council working party level on 29 September, with a view to their submission to the permanent representatives of the member states to the EU (Coreper). It could be 14 or 21 October, a European source said on Friday 2 October.
The aim is to prepare the formal meeting of the Environment Council of the EU on 23 October (see EUROPE 12572/11).
The text, seen by EUROPE, reiterates strong concerns about the global loss of biodiversity, the state of nature in the EU and the limited progress made so far in protecting biodiversity.
It recognises that the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030 is one of the key initiatives of the European Green Deal which aims both to contribute to a climate-neutral EU by 2050, to protect, restore and sustainably use biodiversity and to improve the health of citizens, all while ensuring a sustainable and circular EU economy.
The EU Council is expected to emphasise the links between certain human interventions on nature and the increased risk of the emergence of infectious zoonoses, and the health benefits of a policy that maintains and restores biodiversity and ecosystems.
The text underlines that successful implementation of the ‘Biodiversity’ strategy requires effective action in all relevant sectoral policies at EU and Member State level.
Supporting the objective of ‘bringing nature back into our lives’, it stressed the need for all European Green Deal initiatives to be mutually supportive, whether in the areas of food security, health, climate change, sustainable use of natural and marine resources, sustainable agriculture and food systems, sustainable fisheries and sustainable forest management.
Emphasis is placed on the serious threat to marine biodiversity, a threat highlighted by both the IPBES report and the UN’s Global Biodiversity Outlook 5.
The draft conclusions reaffirm the EU's determination to halt and, where possible, reverse the loss of biodiversity and to take the lead, by example and by action, at the COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in May 2021.
The EU Council is expected to stress that the adoption of an ambitious post-2020 global framework could contribute to EU competitiveness if all parties act with this level of ambition.
These conclusions, once formalised, will complement those adopted by the ‘Environment’ Council of the EU in December 2019 in view of the COP15 which was to be held in October (see EUROPE 12392/17), before the Covid-19 pandemic decided otherwise. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)