Nature destruction an 'existential crisis', says UN chief

CALI, Colombia, Oct 30 (AFP): Humanity faces an "existential crisis" caused by its rapacious destruction of life-sustaining nature, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned delegates Tuesday at a major biodiversity summit in Colombia.

The 16th so-called Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) must make progress on the creation of monitoring and funding mechanisms to achieve 23 goals agreed in Canada two years ago to "halt and reverse" nature destruction.

Themed "Peace with Nature," the summit has been bogged down in disagreement about modalities of funding.

Negotiators are also split on how best to share the profits of digitally sequenced plant and animal genetic data-used in medicines and cosmetics-with the communities they come from. Delegates have no time to waste.

There are only five years left to achieve the 23 UN targets, which include placing 30 per cent of land, water and ocean under protection by 2030.

"Every day, we lose more species. Every minute, we dump a garbage truck of plastic waste into our oceans, rivers and lakes. Make no mistake. This is what an existential crisis looks like," Guterres told delegates.