The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Graham Usher, led the Anglican delegation to the United Nations’ biodiversity conference, COP16. The Church of England’s lead bishop for the environment met representatives of governments, charities, activist groups and faith communities at the world’s largest nature summit.
He shares seven things he learnt:
1. I have returned even more passionate about the need to re-treasure our natural environment. This beautiful, fragile planet home of ours needs us to tread more gently upon it. We must not sleepwalk to disaster. We need to find ways to live sustainably with creation. For too long we have lived as if we are apart from nature. The truth is we are a part of nature. We have no planet B.
2. We are still way off the mark when it comes to our goals for climate, nature and pollution. At the last biodiversity COP15 in 2022, nearly every country in the world committed to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. They agreed to show how they would do that by this year’s conference. Too many, including the UK, haven’t done so.
It seems that it is easy for governments to make a pledge and far harder to take action. Meanwhile wildlife populations continue to fall. There has been a drop of 73% since 1970 – that’s in my lifetime. We must urgently reverse the decline as we rely on nature for so much of our daily lives, including our drinking water, the air we breathe, and pollination for our food.
3. Climate change and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin. Investments in conservation, restoration and environmental protection are futile if climate change continues to advance at the pace we are facing.
In a couple of weeks, the climate COP29 meets in Azerbaijan. We are also way off target to keep global temperature rises beneath 2°C. The future looks as if we will have more serious weather events, as we have seen in Spain last week. We need a whole government approach, indeed a whole society approach, if we are going to take action before it’s too late.
4. Nature creates so many benefits, including contributing to what I call our natural health service. When it is depleted, everyone suffers. Increasingly around the world nature’s destruction is leading to starvation, migration, conflict and war.
The theme of the Colombian conference was ‘making peace with nature’. In a country where there has been much conflict, often over natural resources, we need to be aware that those who stand up to protect nature often put themselves at risk. Colombia itself has seen a frightening number of environmentalists murdered.
5. Faith communities have an important part to play. 85% of the world’s population has a religious affiliation. Working with other faith groups I could see our common vision of a world living sustainably and in harmony with nature. That vision confronts many of the underlying issues that have created the mess we are in – human greed, selfishness and apathy.
I spoke about changing nature loss to gain, committing to our targets, and supporting the poorest nations of the world. Climate change, biodiversity-loss and pollution know no international borders. We need to act together for the sake of our whole planet’s future.
6. There is grass roots energy to change. The city of Cali, where COP16 was held, was alive with people passionate about protecting nature.
The voices and experiences of indigenous groups, with their close connection to their land, brought ancient wisdom about sustainable living, the medicinal properties of plants, and the spiritual elements of living in a landscape.
One of the Anglican delegation, a young indigenous woman from Tonga, lamented what has already been lost and called for a moral mindset change to value the wisdom of her community’s close relationship with nature, especially the sea. We urgently need a transformation in humanity’s relationship with nature from one of exploitation to care and harmony.
7. The conference was a mixed success. Countries agreed on a levy for products using genetic data from nature, thus potentially creating a major biodiversity conservation fund, and on incorporating indigenous voices in UN decision making. However, there were key issues left unresolved about funding and how this decade’s targets will be monitored.
We need as a world community – governments and civil society together – to step up to the mark and do all we can to reduce carbon going into the atmosphere, reverse nature loss, and stop pollution. Only then will future generations to be able to hear the glorious song of creation.
