GLOBAL: New UN platform for biodiversity

The United Nations General Assembly has approved the creation of an Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, aimed at harnessing scientific knowledge in fighting the destruction of the ecosystem.

The new body is modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme. It supports climate change decision-making by producing comprehensive assessment reports. The IPCC shared the shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for informing climate policy and raising public awareness worldwide.

Unesco is one of the organisations involved in creating IPBES.

In a statement on 21 December, the UN agency said: "The main objective of IPBES is to promote awareness among political decision-makers and the general public of the disastrous consequences of biodiversity loss.

"The aim is to ensure that scientific knowledge about the very rapid disappearance of a great number of vegetable and animal species and the erosion of ecosystems leads to concrete measures. IPBES is intended to facilitate this process."

The UN General Assembly resolution to create a platform that would place the issue of biodiversity at the top of the international political agenda came five years after a global conference at Unesco on biodiversity and governance laid the groundwork for negotiations culminating in the formation of IPBES.

As a way forward following the landmark decision, environment ministers will attend a governing council of the UN Environment Programme and Global Ministerial Forum in Kenya next month where decisions concerning the first IPBES plenary meeting as well as the location of the new body's secretariat will be decided.