Advocates: Nations must move faster to protect biodiversity

By JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — Environmentalists are faulting slow progress at a U.N.-backed meeting of nearly all the world’s countries toward beefing up protections for biodiversity on Earth. A total of 195 countries — but not the United States — which are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have wrapped up a two-week meeting aiming toward a deal to prevent the loss of biodiversity and avoid the extinction of many vulnerable species. The deal also tackles the emergence of pathogens like the coronavirus, which damage both lives and livelihoods. But advocates say nations must act faster and spend much more now to protect biodiversity on Earth, because all human life depends on it.