COP15: Five Things to Watch at the Biggest Biodiversity Summit
The 15th UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP15) aims to hammer out measures to protect the world's ecosystems, a goal that could make a substantive difference to climate change.
An area of the Amazon rainforest burns in northern Brazil on Aug. 31.
Photographer: Douglas Magno/AFP/Getty ImagesThe most important gathering on biodiversity in a decade is kicking off this week in Montreal, where countries will negotiate an ecological deal that could hold equal significance to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
That’s because scientists view biodiversity as one of the chief weapons in combating global warming. Protecting the world's ecosystems, and the diverse life within them, from destruction, pollution and other threats, also means protecting natural carbon sinks that absorb emissions.