Summit on Biodiversity: the call to Humanity

The Biodiversity Summit opened on Wednesday at the UN.

Humanity is at war with nature - said  António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN.

"60 percent of all known diseases and 75 percent of new infectious diseases are zoonotic, they are transmitted to humans from animals. This serves as a reminder that the health of the planet and our health are interlinked," said Guterres.

The UN Secretary-General noted that without biodiversity conservation, the international community will not be able to achieve the sustainable development goals and implement the provisions of the Paris climate agreement.

According to him, decisions based on the principle of nature protection should form the basis of recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as long-term plans for economic development.

"Preserving the world's biodiversity will help create jobs and boost economic growth, which we urgently need today," Guterres said. According to the World Economic Forum, he said, humanity has all the opportunities to create 191 million "green" jobs by 2030.

The Secretary-General also recalled the need to invest in the conservation of biodiversity and stressed that the volume of such investments is much less than the funds that are constantly poured into production that damages the environment.

In his speech, the Secretary-General of the UN stated that most of the goals that were planned for the period from 2011 to 2020 were not achieved.


He called on the international community to build a "healthy" relationship with the environment and develop a post-2020 biodiversity conservation plan.