Climate change hogs the limelight; Convention on Biodiversity equally important

‘Climate
change gets the headline, biodiversity does not get the headlines,’ Jairam Ramesh,
environment minister, told PTI as he
left New York this weekend after a week of attending environment-related
meetings, including those with US climate change negotiator Todd Stern and
Chinese environment minister Xie Zhenhua.

Ramesh
said that the Convention on Biodiversity was as important to India as
combating climate change, which tends to hog the limelight.

‘One
of the purposes of my visit was to re-establish the significance of the
importance of the Convention on Biodiversity so it does not fall by the wayside
and get taken over by climate change,’ said Ramesh.

The
United Nations has found that the world has already missed the 2010 deadline
for biodiversity conservation, with potentially grave consequences, and the
number of species facing extinction is growing by the day, especially in
developing countries.

Pointing
out that India will be hosting the biodiversity summit in 2012, Ramesh said, ‘We
have a tremendous interest in the success of Convention on Biodiversity.’

The
opening week of the UN general assembly also held a special session on the
challenges that the world was facing in saving its biodiversity.

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