- The Guardian
- Issue #2122
A UN target to protect and restore 30 per cent of nature by 2030 will not be achieved in ocean environments until 2107 on current trends, an analysis by Greenpeace has found. The international campaign group warned about the slow rate of progress in the report, published ahead of the opening of the UN Biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia.
Nations agreed on the target to protect nature across land and seas at the last biodiversity Cop in Montreal in 2022. The Global Ocean Treaty was then agreed in 2023 to enable nations to take action towards meeting commitments to protect marine environments within the wider nature target.
Greenpeace found that less than 3 per cent of the world’s ocean has been fully protected from human activities. This includes less than 1 per cent of the high seas – vast areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdictions.
Greenpeace’s Elena Polisano said: “The parlous state of nature, at home and internationally, has never been more obvious. And yet far too often we’re stalling or moving backwards on the vital measures and targets we need to be hitting to turn the tide.”
On 8 October, environmentalist Greta Thunberg was set to speak in the West German city of Dortmund, where since May activists and students had maintained a pro-Palestinian encampment near the university. However, giving very short notice, the Dortmund police banned the Swedish climate activist from taking part in a pro-Palestinian event.
The authorities explained that they had drawn up a “danger forecast” after “intensive examination” and come up with the assessment that, “the most recent events in connection with Thunberg led to the assessment that she is a participant who is prepared to use violence.”
Thunberg stated: “After almost 4 months of encampment, the student Palestine encampment in Dortmund were forced by German police to take down the camp and leave, and police said they would arrest me if I went there. All this just because the students had invited me to speak at their event, and I had been to a pro-Palestine protest in Berlin the day before that police had stormed.”
PARASITE OF THE WEEK: is the King of England. Independent senator Lidia Thorpe was last week escorted out of a royal reception at Parliament House.
She called for a treaty, saying “you are not our king” before she was forced to leave. The monarch had recently finished addressing the reception when Senator Thorpe, who was wearing a traditional cloak, stepped out into the aisle and began her statement against the dead hand of colonialism.
“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” she demanded towards the stage, where the king and queen sat next to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“Give us a treaty, we want treaty,” said Senator Thorpe, who is Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung. In a statement after the protest, she said she was attempting to hand the king a “notice of complicity in Aboriginal Genocide” in accordance with the Statute of the International Criminal Court 1998.
Said opposition leader Peter Dutton to the royal duo, who appear to be already in a state of decomposition, “Your presence here happily reminds Australians of all of the things that we love about Britain: Austen and Shakespeare, Churchill and Darwin, Queen and Dr Who, cricket and rugby, and of course, tea and pints.”
