COP15: Canada, China jointly host UN biodiversity talks amid rising political tensions

Since China hasn't opened its borders to international travellers, it agreed to move the meeting to Montreal, which is home to the offices of the UN biodiversity secretariat.

A major UN conference on biodiversity will get underway in Montreal Tuesday with a lofty goal to get every country to agree to protect almost one-third of the world’s land and oceans before the end of this decade.

But the environment may be the easy part of a meeting that is being co-hosted by Canada and China amid growing diplomatic tensions between the two – and without the political heft of world leaders, who weren’t invited to attend.

“I would say that it will be very interesting and very important to watch how the COP15 unfolds,” said Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China.

China is the president of this year’s biodiversity meeting, which means it helps set the agenda and guides the negotiations. It would normally play host, too, and delayed the meeting four times because of COVID-19.

Because China still hasn’t opened its borders to international travellers, the Chinese government agreed in June that the meeting could be moved to Montreal, which is home to the offices of the UN biodiversity secretariat.

Officially, Canada’s role is mainly one of logistics. But the arrangement will increase Canada’s influence over the negotiations and could add more diplomatic unrest to the equation.

To say diplomatic relations between Canada and China are strained is akin to suggesting the Pacific Ocean is just a wee body of water.

The relationship went off the rails in 2018 when Canada arrested a Chinese tech executive on behalf of the United States, and China swiftly detained two Canadians in apparent retaliation. While more than a year has passed since all three were released, tensions haven’t really eased.