The COP15 agreement is critical for reversing biodiversity losses.

The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, was held in Montreal, Canada, between Dec 7 and 19. The UN’s Red List now includes 147,517 species, of which 41,459 are threatened with extinction. COP15 was the most important biodiversity conference of the decade. The China-led meeting could prove pivotal, with the deal reached hopefully going a long way toward reversing this dismal trend. Without urgent action, global biodiversity is heading the same way as the climate, only faster. The world has to take notice now, and countries have to step up with both action and funds to stop biodiversity losses.