Minister of State Malcolm Noonan’s representing Ireland at the COP 15 Biological Diversity summit.
The Carlow Kilkenny Green Party representative is heading a delegation from his Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as well as the National Parks and Wildlife Services.
He will be negotiating as a bloc in coordination with EU partners as the event runs from today (Wednesday, 7th December) to the 19th of December.
They are looking for an ambitious and transformative agreement capable of addressing the huge challenges facing biodiversity globally.
Minister Noonan says “COP15 is the most important meeting on biodiversity in over a decade and I’ll be there representing the Irish Government, who will negotiate in a bloc with the EU and its member states as a positive voice for nature and biodiversity. There is much to do.
“Nature is essential for human existence, but we’re losing species faster than at any time over the past 10 million years. The great majority of the world’s ecosystems are showing rapid decline. Some scientists say we’re entering a sixth mass extinction – the fifth was the dinosaurs.
“COP15 is happening at a crucial time for humanity, when the urgent need to shore up nature’s contributions to people are more starkly obvious than ever. Food security, flood and drought mitigation, carbon sequestration and the provision of clean water are issues of significant global concern in today’s world, and all are underpinned by healthy nature.
“That’s without even mentioning the deep cultural and spiritual connections so many of us feel to the great web of life that has evolved over billions of years, and of which we are a part.
“It’s against this backdrop that the world is coming together to adopt a new global biodiversity framework that, we hope, will halt the loss and move us into an era of restoration. It’s time for ambition, for leadership and for bold action. There isn’t a moment to waste.”
