A major United Nations biodiversity summit set for October could be moved from China because of the new coronavirus outbreak, 快猫短视频 has been told.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) conference is due to be held from 15 to 18 October in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to negotiate targets to stop the loss of animals and plants globally. China鈥檚 role as host has been as a chance for the country to showcase some of the solutions to biodiversity loss, such as tree-planting.
But the landmark meeting will 鈥渁lmost certainly鈥� be moved to another country because of concerns over the virus鈥� spread, according to a senior official with knowledge of the matter. The summit won鈥檛 be cancelled or postponed, they said.
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The two main candidates for a new location are Montreal in Canada, home to the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity, or Bonn in Germany, where the UN has a large convention centre, the source said. They added that no other country has yet offered to host, as Spain did for Chile with the UN climate talks last year after civil unrest in Santiago.
A CBD spokesperson said: 鈥淭he plans are to hold the meeting in Kunming.鈥�
The CBD has been monitoring the impact of the new coronavirus on the biodiversity summit. With covid-19 cases reported in Kunming, a meeting of a CBD working group this week was moved from the Chinese city to Rome.
While these talks have been described as constructive, they have also seen tensions emerge over the issue of 鈥渃ommon but differentiated responsibilities鈥�, UN jargon for the fact that poorer countries will need more support to stem biodiversity loss than richer ones.
The discussions in Rome are designed to make progress on the first draft text to be agreed in October, where it is hoped governments will set new biodiversity goals beyond 2020.
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