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Statement by Minister for the Environment Steffi Lemke at the High-Level UNGA Debate “Moment for Nature”, July 19 2022.

19.07.2022 - Speech

Check Against Delivery


This year there is one major international environment conference after another:

At the UN Environment Assembly, historic decisions were taken in the fight against plastic waste.

Just a few days ago, I was at the UN Ocean Conference, which focused on the dire state of the oceans.

This year, the spotlight of the High-level Political Forum is on life below water and on land.

And at the end of the year, key decisions are pending at the UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh and the UN Conference on Biological Diversity in Montreal.

Public attention to these issues is important if we are to produce good solutions in the upcoming negotiations. These include a binding agreement to protect the high seas, a plastics convention and a global agreement on biodiversity conservation.

It is equally important to keep raising awareness of the overarching aspects and interdependencies. This is because the three global environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity and pollution are closely interlinked. We will only be successful if we tackle them together. At the same time, this will help us make progress on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.

Today’s event reflects this holistic approach – as does this year’s German G7 presidency. This is true both for the joint declaration of the G7 environment, climate and energy ministers and for the G7 heads of state and government in Elmau.

In the G7 context, we have agreed to the following:

A strong commitment to an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework. We expect this to be adopted in December at the CBD COP15. In the G7, we have pledged to implement this agreement quickly and to significantly increase our national and international funding for nature by 2025.

We supported the resolution on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) adopted at this year’s UN Environment Assembly. G7 leaders have also committed to strengthening synergies between climate and biodiversity finance, and to scaling up and improving Nature-based Solutions for climate and biodiversity. This also applies to financing.

In the G7 Ocean Deal, we agreed to make concerted efforts to strengthen international and national marine protection and conservation. We will also take this position in the upcoming international negotiations on issues spanning marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdictions (BBNJ), protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030, the plastics convention or setting the highest environmental standards in deep-sea mining.

The G7 considers circular economy and resource efficiency to be key levers in combating climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. In this area, we have agreed on concrete measures for the next three years under the G7 Berlin Roadmap.

In Elmau the G7 heads of state and government committed to sustainable supply chains.

The G7 prioritises joint action and strengthening multilateral processes. In doing so, we want to embrace our particular responsibility to tackle climate change, biodiversity and Pollution.


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