Delegates at U.N. Biodiversity Summit Issue Dire Warnings for Life on Earth

TaiwanPlus News

As the U.N.'s COP16 biodiversity summit wraps up in Cali, Colombia, delegates from over 190 nations gave dire warnings of "apocalyptic" loss of life and the possible extinction of humankind.

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00:00In Cali, Colombia, delegations from over 190 nations have convened for the U.N. Convention

00:09on Biodiversity, or COP16. They are here to address dwindling wildlife populations and

00:15habitat loss around the world. Delegates say the planetary ecosystem is under threat. And

00:21as Colombia's president puts it, this carries consequences of biblical proportions.

00:26We are beginning the time of human extinction. I don't think I'm exaggerating. It's not

00:35an apocalyptic vision, although what we are experiencing is worse than the apocalypse.

00:42The book of St. John, the last of the New Testament.

00:48Host nation Colombia, along with 20 other countries, launched a coalition seeking to

00:53make, quote, peace with nature. The coalition proposes radical and sweeping changes to

00:59how humans engage with nature and wants to mobilize all of society towards preserving

01:05the environment. Another goal is expanding protection and managed conservation of the

01:13Earth's land and sea area 30 percent by 2030, a goal known as 30 by 30, a major increase

01:21from the 18 percent of land and 8 percent of ocean currently under conservation.

01:51Every minute we throw a garbage truck of plastic waste into our oceans, rivers and lakes.

02:01Don't be mistaken. This is how you see an existential crisis.

02:10The coalition contains countries from North and South America, Europe and Africa, but

02:15none from Asia. Taiwan is not taking part in COP16. The country is excluded from United

02:21Nations bodies because of pressure from China. While the country isn't represented, a professor

02:27from National Taiwan University says the global situation is dire.

02:32Things aren't looking good for global insect biodiversity and the same applies to pretty

02:37much everything else. We definitely do have good data for vertebrates, mammals, birds,

02:42whales, amphibians, and it's looking pretty bad.

02:45How bad exactly? According to Professor Shalomi, the alarming prognoses given at COP16 are

02:54pretty on the mark, with up to 70 percent of vertebrate populations already gone.

02:59That's more than we should be having if this was your run of the mill extinction event.

03:04Things are disappearing really, really quickly. A lot of that is from, some of that is from

03:09hunting, collecting, but a big amount of that is sheer deforestation and habitat loss.

03:15As COP16 delegates debate how the plans and proposals will be implemented, there are questions

03:21if they'll be enough to prevent what officials describe as the possibility of our own extinction.

03:27Dolphine Chen and Jonathan Kaplan for Taiwan Plus.

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