Target: Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of United Nations
Goal: Ensure cohesive and well-captained conference to address biodiversity crisis.
With at least a million species in peril, the planet is in the midst of a mass extinction, fueled and accelerated by the destruction on nature imposed by humans. Once a decade, global leaders are supposed to carve out time in their busy schedules of bickering and political paralysis to devote time and resources to these critical issues. After the last scheduled meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity was postponed during the pandemic, it was moved to this year in Canada.
A recent gathering in Kenya was supposed to serve as a nexus for negotiations between involved nations on topics of importance like pesticide use, harmful subsidies, agricultural innovations, and pledges for greater land and water protections. This gathering would have provided a framework for meaningful and concrete plans of action at the upcoming convention. Unfortunately, inside sources claim that once again humanity is brushing off its responsibilities to the planet it calls home.
The talks apparently fell apart due to a lack of leadership and willpower. The ministers and leaders of the participating countries do not even bother to show up to these negotiations until they are nearing an end. Due to the lackadaisical attitude toward this conference, though, negotiations have never really gotten started, meaning that the world could once again lose another essential opportunity while kicking the can down the road another ten years.
Tragically, many invaluable and irreplaceable animals and plants may not live to see that day. Sign the petition below to demand these careless, do-nothing so-called leaders treat the planet and its inhabitants with the respect and the urgency they deserve.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary-General Guterres,
The hundreds of millions of people who care about the future of this planet and future generations are tired of their leaders paying lip service to the damage being done to their shared home. The seemingly imminent collapse of the once-a-decade COP15 meeting is just the latest example of an absence of commitment and urgency to our most existential crises. The theme of this conference is to be “Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth” and follows on the heels of the supposed International Year of Biodiversity that heralded the last conference.
In the years since that last meeting, the world has lost countless species, with a million more forecasted to vanish in the coming decades. Humanity is not honoring the ideal of a shared future but rendering it impossible with destructive policies that need immediate and united attention. If the recent Nairobi meeting is any indication, leaders are suffering from an acute case of attention deficit disorder. The troubling lack of progress and stark lack of leadership compelled numerous environmental groups to draft a letter to yourself and other global leaders calling for more involved leadership.
Please honor this urgent plea. Ensure an event timed alongside the World Cup is a true win for the world. Do everything in your power to make the Convention on Biological Diversity a success. Anything less, and the planet will surely suffer.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Magda Ehlers
Like the UN is going to listen. They want to make US extinct, too. Not signing this useless “begging.”