The COP15 UN summit is considered as an opportunity to achieve for biodiversity what the Paris agreement has achieved for the battle against climate change, raising the stakes significantly.

Biodiversity is the whole of all species that are alive today, as well as how they are interconnected to form the intricate web of life that provides us with food, fresh water, and clean air.

The two concerns are linked, and there are worries that failing to achieve a favourable resolution on safeguarding nature will make combating climate change much more difficult.

According to Dr. Abigail Entwistle of the conservation organisation Fauna and Flora International, “the concept of biodiversity can be rather confusing for people, but it’s really about nature.”

“We’ve not been as good at getting the message across about what’s at stake and how urgent the situation is and we need to have our 1.5 degree moment for biodiversity in the same way we have for climate change.”

The financing of the plans and disagreement over how to preserve the environment without endangering the creation of “paper parks” or “ghost woods” that are only preserved on paper and from which indigenous people and local communities are excluded pose serious threats to the negotiations.