A l'UM la science [S02-ep12]: From COP 15 to the Science Bar

This week in A l'UM la science, Anaëlle Durfort, PhD student at Marbec, and Marie-Morgane Rouyer, PhD student at CEFE, decipher with us the latest COP 15 on biodiversity. Agnès Pesenti, head of scientific culture, returns at the end of the program to present the new season of the Science Bar. Broadcast on Divergence FM-93.9, every Wednesday at 6pm.

When a boat takes on water, a good captain gets all the crew up on deck to bail, bail and hope to reach dry land. And in "bailing out", as you've heard, there's COP for Conference of the Parties, the international body set up following the Earth Summit in Rio in '92 to try and stem the threat of the great shipwreck that is climate change. The idea is for the 198 signatory countries to enforce the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The first COP was held in Berlin in 95. Since then, 26 COPs have been held - one a year - until the last one in 2022 in Sharm el Sheikh, COP 27. Of these meetings, we particularly remember COP 3, which gave birth to the Kyoto Protocols, and COP 21 for theParis Agreement. We also remember the failure of COP 15 in Copenhagen, which aimed to renegotiate a climate agreement(Le bilan décevant du sommet de Copenhague, Le Monde, 19/12/2009).

In parallel with these climate COPs, and in response to the collapse of biodiversity, the COP for Biodiversity was created in 1994, and is organized every two years. If we had to name just one, it would have to be COP 10 in Nagoya, where governments pledged to achieve the 20 Aichi targets, including halving the loss of natural habitats and implementing sustainable consumption and production plans.

By 2020, none of these objectives had been fully achieved. The collapse of biodiversity is indisputable: 1 million species are threatened with extinction, 75% of the earth's surface has been significantly altered and 85% of wetlands have disappeared. The problem with scooping is that you don't repair the leak.

Anaëlle Durfort and Marie-Morgane Rouyer are our guests. They are both doctoral students at the University of Montpellier, the former at the Marbec underwater biology laboratory and the latter at the Centre d'écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive (CEFE). They were selected by the Global Youth Biodiversity Network to take part in the latest Cop for Biodiversity, COP 15, organized in Montreal from December 7 to 19 under the Chinese presidency. And they tell us all about it today. They will also be giving a talk open to the public on Thursday January 26 at 6.30pm on the Triolet campus.

Our last-minute guest is Agnès Pesenti, Head of Scientific Culture. She presents the new season of the Bar des sciences, starting on January 26 with a nightmarish subject: sleep disorders.

At UM la science you've got the program, here we go!

Coproduction: Divergence FM / Université de Montpellier
Animation: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interviews: Aline Périault / Lucie Lecherbonnier
Production: Tom Chevalier

Listen to the program "A l'UM la science" on Divergence FM 93.9