India joins High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People

Context

  • India recently India joins High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, a group of more than 70 countries encouraging the adoption of the global goal to protect 30×30.

Key Details

  • India’s announcement comes in the lead up to a high-level biodiversity meeting, hosted by China.
  • The global 30×30 goal is currently a centrepiece of the treaty. 
  • Welcoming India’s decision to join the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which was initiated at the “One Planet Summit” in Paris in January 2021, Ambassador of France to India said that on the eve of the opening of COP15, India joining the High Ambition Coalition is a real game changer and will boost our multilateral efforts.
  • Stating that India is a major player for biodiversity protection, the French ambassador informed that this coalition aims to promote an international agreement to protect at least 30 % the of world’s land and ocean by 2030.

About High Ambition Coalition (HAC)

  • The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) is an informal group of approximately 61 countries within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). High Ambition Coalition
  • Its objective is to support the adoption of a target aiming to protect 30% of the planet’s land and 30% of its oceans by 2030 (30×30 target), within the future global framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) for the protection of biodiversity, which is to be adopted at the next COP in China this autumn.
    • This science-based target reflects the recommendations of the IPBES and the IUCN. These institutions have identified protected areas as essential and effective solutions for the preservation of species and ecosystems and recommended that their scope increase significantly, up to at least 30% by 2030.
  • It is committed to advancing progressive proposals on climate ambition.
  • The HAC was founded by the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2014 with the aim of ensuring the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, was as ambitious as possible.
  • The aim of the coalition is to gather as many governments as possible, targeting in priority those that can influence current negotiations on the adoption of the target.
  • The Coalition was officially launched at the One Planet Summit in 2021. It currently has around sixty members.
  • The Republic of the Marshall Islands serves as the convener and secretariat of the HAC.
  • HAC members currently include a mix of countries in the global north and south; European, Latin American, Africa and Asia countries are among the members.
  • India is the first of the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to join the HAC.
  • There is no official list of the group’s members, but as of 2018, in addition to the European Union, countries in the HAC include Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Jamaica, New Zealand, Mexico, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Saint Lucia among others.

Source; PIB

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