Brian Lehrer: It's the Bri1an Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now to our climate story of the week. This week, we'll hear about COP16, the UN biodiversity summit, dubbed by my next guest, Benji Jones from Vox, as, "The most important event you've never heard of." Representatives from nearly every country on Earth are gathered in Colombia to tackle how to stop the alarming loss of plant and animal species that keep our planet and us alive and thriving. The key takeaway, biodiversity is in stark decline. Wild animals, Benji writes, are spiraling toward extinction. More than a third of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction. What's the US been doing to protect the natural world? One of Benji's stories that we'll talk about is headlined, Every Country is Negotiating a Plan to Save Nature Except the US.

Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox, welcome back to WNYC.

Benji Jones: Hey, good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your phone calls, questions or comments on biodiversity and the UN COP16 meeting, as it's called, going on right now. You called it the most important event you've never heard of. Explain why you think so.

Benji Jones: When it comes to all the environmental problems that we're facing as a planet, as a society, I think we've seen climate change really rise to the surface. It's been amazing to see so much mobilization around clean energy, around transitioning dirty fuel economies into cleaner ones to help lower emissions, to cool down the planet, but we haven't seen as much mobilization, as much attention globally focused on the nature piece of this. Our forests, our plants and animals, the things that create ecosystems that we all depend on, and it's just been harder to communicate the message that, look, biodiversity is in trouble, animals are in trouble, and that is also trouble for us because so many communities depend on the services that these ecosystems provide, such as clean water pollinating our plants and so on. Yes, this event that is happening right now, which I do believe is the most important meeting for nature, is just not getting a ton of attention, even though this is actually the biggest event of its kind ever.

Brian Lehrer: Usually these conferences that are called COP something, COP13, 14, 15, now 16, have to do with climate change. Is biodiversity a climate change issue or a separate issue?

Benji Jones: They're definitely connected. Actually, one of the things that is being talked about a lot right now at this meeting is how to make the mission of conserving biodiversity more aligned with efforts to mitigate climate change. If you think about a goal to protect forests, countries are really trying to reduce deforestation down to zero by 2030. That is directly linked to climate change because as you cut down the forest or as forests burn, that releases emissions. It also is a double punch because trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and help lower climate changes problems. If you protect forests, which are a key part of biodiversity, you can also mitigate climate change. There are a ton of intersections between these conversations about biodiversity and about climate change, even though they are happening in different UN negotiations.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a worst case scenario being discussed? I see the key takeaway is the threat of what's being called ecological collapse.

Benji Jones: Yes, it is a scary thing to think about. I think in some ways, we're already seeing that worst case scenario in some parts of the world. We saw really incredible devastating wildfires in Brazil, for example, and that's directly linked to cutting down forests, which is largely linked to cattle ranching, which is used for producing meat that a lot of us consume in the United States. We already are seeing a lot of the consequences of losing our natural ecosystems, but it can definitely get worse. I think that that scary idea of ecological collapse is on everyone's mind here in [inaudible 00:04:15] where I'm at this COP meeting right now.

Brian Lehrer: Specifically in terms of plant and animal extinction risk?

Benji Jones: Again, it comes down to thinking through what services nature is providing to us that we might not necessarily be aware of. Thinking about the role that bats play in eating insects that are damaging crops on American farms. There was recent research that showed that as bats decline, and they're declining in the US due to a fungal pathogen, that means that farmers actually have to use more pesticides because the bats are not there to eat the insects that damage the crops, and when you start using more pesticides, you start creating health problems for people. There's actually been a link between infant mortality and the decline of bats. There are all of these incredible connections between animals and plants and people. It's nice at least here to see those connections being made very clear.

Brian Lehrer: Again, listeners, we invite your phone calls, your questions or comments on this meeting going on now. COP, by the way, for those of you who don't know the acronym, it stands for Conference of the Parties, which is parties to the Paris climate accord of 2015. Do I have that right?

Benji Jones: You're right, that COP is Conference of the Parties, but this particular COP is actually under a different treaty. It's very confusing.

Brian Lehrer: Ooh.

Benji Jones: There's the UN Climate Treaty, and then there's this COP, which is specifically about the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is a different UN treaty. That treaty is the one that focuses more specifically on nature, whereas there's also a UN Climate COP that more people are aware of that's more focused on climate change, but again, there are all these intersections.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Okay, I misunderstood that. Listeners, we can take your phone calls, questions or comments. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text for Benji Jones from Vox. How about that headline on one of your articles, Every Country is Negotiating a Plan to Save Nature Except the US? What?

Benji Jones: It's interesting. Basically you have, at these Conference of the Parties, party is basically countries. Country governments all get together and try to negotiate how do we end these big environmental problems. Literally we're talking about every country in the world except for the Vatican state, which of course is very tiny, and the United States, and that is only because the United States has not ratified or formally joined this Convention on Biological Diversity. The best plans that we have from an international perspective under the United Nations to conserve nature is this Convention on Biological Diversity. The US is essentially the only country that has not formally joined that convention. That essentially means that any agreement that countries come to through negotiating, including targets to reduce nature loss, such as, I don't know, by protecting X% of land, that means that the US will not be bound to those plans, and so they're on the sidelines when it comes to these big international meetings. A lot of people that I've talked to have mentioned that that really is a problem because the US is such a big country, it's a huge economy, and a lot of the problems stem from economic activity in the US.

Brian Lehrer: Happy to say we're getting a call from friend of the show, Marielle Anzalone, who some of you will remember did a wonderful year long series with us once a month for a year on an annual, a full annual life cycle of trees. She's the founder of New York Wildflower Week.

Marielle, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling today.

Marielle Anzelone: Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me. You are speaking my biodiversity language. Thank you so much for covering this really critical issue.

Brian Lehrer: What would you like to add?

Marielle Anzelone: I wanted to say yes to everything your guest is saying. It's so critical that the United States is the largest, most powerful country, and we have no real biodiversity agenda. Thankfully, President Biden has done an amazing job of actually pushing biodiversity very specifically forward. The Biden-Harris administration has a whole lot of wins in this category on conservation. It's really critical in looking at these issues and concerns globally that we need to do so much more in the US, and we've had really good momentum with the Biden-Harris administration, which we need to keep up with by having Harris walls in the White House.

Because even looking at things like the ETA completely gutted under the Trump administration, and now we're looking at freshwater wetland conservation in the US, 91 million wetlands are under possible loss of the Clean Water Act protection. The idea that nature is this thing that's outside of us and the US doesn't have to be part of this is absolutely false. We are critical to making this work globally.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Marielle. Benji, anything you want to add to that?

Benji Jones: Yes. I think it's definitely true that the US should be doing more. There's a lot of power that comes from joining these kinds of international negotiations. I should say the US could be doing more. The US is, in many ways, a leader when it comes to environmental protections. When you think about the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, there's a lot that the US is doing. Yes, the Biden administration did do certain things that are similar to what these big plans to save nature are trying to do, including committing to conserving at least 30% of all lands and oceans by 2030.

There is a lot of work that the US is trying to do around conservation, and it deserves some credit for that, but, yes, that does not mean that it couldn't do more, especially in the international space, because the US is the largest economy. Again, experts say that we need leadership to address these issues, and the US is very much not leading on the international front.

Brian Lehrer: I guess we should say that it's not just the US. We've heard that countries are 'way off track' in meeting their biodiversity targets, according to reporting from COP21, maybe including yours. What's the current state of affairs internationally, and why is everybody falling short?

Benji Jones: That's a big question. Internationally, it's not great. One of the goals of this big meeting that's happening right now is to check in on progress, to see how countries all around the world are doing in their own countries to try to address biodiversity loss. The first problem is that we don't really know because a lot of these countries don't yet have the reporting in place to say how things are going in their own economies. That's one problem. In general, we're seeing not enough progress on some of the biggest objectives of these sorts of global plans to conserve nature. When it comes to, let's say, putting more protected areas or national parks in place, right now the total amount of land that is considered conserved is about 17%. The total amount of ocean that is conserved is about 8%. Both of those proportions need to reach 30% in just five years, so by 2030, in order to reach the objectives under these big conventions.

Way off track when it comes to conserving land, and also way off track when it comes to finance. There's a huge gap in funding for trying to protect biodiversity. It's about $700 billion a year. Right now we have just a fraction of that available. There is a lot more to be done to raise more money to make [inaudible 00:12:22] this happen. There's a lot of concern, especially at this meeting, that it's just not moving fast enough.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another phone call. Here's Bash in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. Bash, you're on why. Hello.

Bash: Hi. I just wanted to say that I divide my time between New York and this small town in Pennsylvania. I bought a little undeveloped piece of land and turned it into a hobby farm. In developing it, I see how the changes that I've made into the land, like mowing down the weeds to keep a lawn, or trying to grow fruit trees, or everything that you have to do in order to keep animals from killing your chickens, or getting into your bees, there's just so much herbicide, pesticide, fungicide that you use in developing land. I feel like ultimately, even the way that water runs off the land once you clear it, or you put in a drive, or you have a load of manure that you have dropped off on the property, and that nitrogen leeches into the water and changes the water, I just feel like those kind of changes that we make when we develop the land is so much more impactful than climate change. I don't know why we don't talk about that more. Just the amount of pesticides that we're spraying to keep down bugs, I think really has a much further reach than just killing mosquitoes or killing whatever bugs that we're trying to kill off at hand.

Brian Lehrer: Are you saying we shouldn't be doing farming or just we could be doing it in better ways, like organic, pesticide free farming?

Bash: I don't know what the solution is, but I don't think that it's fair to have a conversation that seems so lopsided that all of the harms that are happening in the world are due to climate change. At least with the diversity question, I just don't believe that that's true. I think that people have gotten a little extreme about what they demand from their living space, and they don't understand that the changes that they're making to the land, just by having a lawn, for example, or regularly spraying for mosquitoes like they do in the south, is very impactful to the bug population and diversity in general.

Brian Lehrer: Bash, thank you very much for your call. Of course there are intersections there, as we talked about before, with climate. You know, Benji, some of our listeners might be thinking, wait, we're saying the United States is so lax in this area, but we just celebrated, less than a year ago, the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act in the United States. I was reading on one website that dozens of species have come off the endangered species list in these 50 years as a result of protections of the Act. Most of the conspiracies we hear have to do with property owners complaining about too much enforcement of the Endangered Specie Act to keep little obscure species like the snail darter, that was one, and other things safe. Are we that bad?

Benji Jones: Yes. The Endangered Species Act is considered by people who are involved in implementing it as an emergency measure. It's when things get so bad for species that they are literally at risk of blinking out permanently. It's not really thought of as a way to help populations avoid hitting the total end of their existence. It's very much an emergency measure, and it has been pretty effective, from what I've learned from my reporting, in preventing that final step of losing the species from the planet.

When it comes to efforts short of doing that, so the US puts a lot of money into subsidies for pesticides, so there are a lot of things that the US is doing that unfortunately is causing declines of populations, not necessarily that is pushing the species to extinction then the Endangered Species Act comes in to try to rescue it at the last minute, but a lot of experts that I've talked to say that there's really a need to prevent these population declines in the first place so that they can avoid having to trigger the Endangered Species Act as this emergency measure.

Because you talk to a lot of conservation folks, and they don't want to have to use the Endangered Species Act because, as you said, it comes with a lot of restrictions, and that makes a lot of people angry. If the US government put more money into measures to protect species, whether it's more sustainable farming, conserved areas and so forth, that would avoid having to use the Endangered Species Act at all.

Brian Lehrer: We're talking about the COP16 UN Biodiversity Conference taking place now with Benji Jones who is writing about it for Vox. Dennis in Brooklyn is not a fan of this process, I don't think. Dennis, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Dennis: Hey, good morning. I'm a huge fan of conservation and biodiversity. I am not a fan of any international body. Look at the WHO, the World Health Organization. They literally, I don't know if I could say this on the radio, they screwed us. They let the virus get out, China is not held accountable. Nothing. They're just used to fleece the United States. All these international organizations are there solely to fleece the rich countries. The other countries are never held accountable. India, China, the huge continent of Africa, never held accountable. It's only to fleece the United States. I [inaudible 00:18:05] we could do it on our own.

Brian Lehrer: Dennis, thank you. That is demonstrably not true. That just needs to be fact checked, Benji, right? Their main purpose is not to fleece the United States. The United States could argue whether too much is demanded of it as the wealthiest country in the world for a long, long time by many measures. A lot gets asked of it, not to mention the most climate and other polluting country of the world because of our consumption over much time. I realize China is now number one on climate pollution, but the United States is still number two and was number one for a long time. Certainly, it's just demonstrably false to say they exist to fleece the United States.

However, the caller, Benji, articulates a feeling that certainly this is a Donald Trump line. He campaigns against international organizations like this all the time. This feeling exists in the United States that somehow the US gets disadvantaged by these.

Benji Jones: Yes. I think it's worth saying that we should ask questions about where the wealth of the United States comes from. The reason that people are asking the United States and other wealthy countries, predominantly in the global north, to pitch in, and that's partly because a lot of the wealth that comes from the United States is sourced from extraction in many of these southern economies, including in Central Africa, where we're mining for rare minerals. There are bigger, more international geopolitical issues at play. I don't think it's right to say that the US is wealthy on its own. It is wealthy in large part because of extraction in other areas that is driving some of these global issues. That's why you see a lot of these countries in the global south asking for the US to chip in.

To your point about--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Benji Jones: I was just going to say, to the point about there's definitely resistance, especially among more conservative lawmakers, against joining any international treaties, the Convention on Biological Diversity being one of them. The talking points that you often hear is that by joining these international treaties, there's going to be some kind of burden placed on the United States or that will infringe on American sovereignty, or companies will have to disclose their intellectual property. The experts that I've spoken to have basically said that that's not true at all.

Brian Lehrer: I see that Colombia, as the host country, emphasize the link between biodiversity and peace. How does protecting nature relate to promoting peace, according to Colombia officials? How do they back that up?

Benji Jones: There are definitely ties between the peace process in Colombia and the peace accord that was signed in 2016 in conservation. A lot of it has to do with reforming land rights in the rural parts of Colombia. It really is, I think, a big deal that Colombia is hosting this conference. You see a lot of connections between turmoil internationally and the loss of nature. When you start to cut down forests, you create drought. That can form tensions, and that can lead to migration. There are tensions around migration. There's very much a link between conservation and international issues related to migration and so forth.

In Colombia, there's data showing that there was an increase in deforestation just after the peace accord was signed, because a lot of people were going back to their land and deforesting it, creating new lives for themselves. That is a bit of a problem. In general, you tend to see when peace happens in a region, there's more government accountability, and that usually leads to more conservation. They're very much intertwined.

Brian Lehrer: A couple of quick things before you go. I see the United States played a key role in negotiating the Convention on Biological Diversity. That meeting is that this conference is a follow up on, and yet it's not a formal member. I don't understand that.

Benji Jones: It's confusing. The convention was created in '92. 1992, the US was very much involved. It was President Bill Clinton that signed the treaty after that convention. I think that was in '93 or '94. It was looking like the US was going to be a member, and then when Clinton introduced the treaty to be ratified, which is the formal step you have to take to become a member, when he introduced the treaty to be ratified with the Senate, it requires a two-thirds majority to ratify global treaties. They did not have that majority. It was blocked from even coming to a vote. No one has introduced it for ratification ever since because there's this idea that there's no chance that they'll have the support to ratify it. It's very confusing.

The US, I wish I should say, has sent a delegation, sends delegations to these international meetings. They're just not able to be formally involved, even though they're trying to inform them, they're trying to sway the opinions of people who are actually negotiating, but yes, they're not actually members.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing. I see the private sector has been involved in these talks. What role are businesses playing in biodiversity conservation? Are they there more to protect their interest against too much conservation, or are they there to greenwash their image, or what's the role of the business sector?

Benji Jones: I think it's probably a little bit of both of those things. Agriculture is the largest driver of biodiversity loss and deforestation globally by far. The companies that are involved in agriculture are very much present at these events, both because they want to make sure that they understand potential restrictions that might be coming, but they also want to figure out how they can clean up their own supply chain. You see companies that have soy holdings or palm oil, corn and so forth, they're trying to figure out how can we lower our impact.

I should also mention, there's this whole conversation about what's called nature-based risks. If you see deforestation, it's affecting the supply of water. That can be a problem for companies that have a ton of farms in their supply chain. Because if you have nature loss, you might also have issues related to getting products to your consumer. There is very much a reason the private sector is here.

Then just the last thing, there is a big conversation about how to reduce harmful subsidies. Again, subsidies for things like pesticides, fossil fuels. The private sector is very much both concerned about efforts to curtail subsidies, but also trying to figure out what the future might look like if those subsidies, they are going to go towards more sustainable action, such as, I don't know, having cover crops on a farm. The subsidy conversation is very much involving and directly impacting the private sector.

Brian Lehrer: Benji Jones, environment correspondent at Vox on COP16, the UN biodiversity summit now underway in Columbia. Thanks so much for talking to us about it.

Benji Jones: Thanks for having me.

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