麻豆传媒

WELCOME to 2020, the year that began with Australia in flames and its leaders in denial, and could end with the whole world facing the same predicament.

To say that this is a pivotal year for the environment is no exaggeration. To borrow a sporting analogy, it is crunch time, with three knife-edge fixtures that will establish the direction and scope of global action for years to come 鈥� and with it, maybe the habitability of the planet.

The first big one is the biodiversity convention in Kunming, China, in October, where the UN and heads of government will set new targets for protection of the natural world. That will be quickly followed by climate talks in Glasgow, UK, in , where world leaders (probably minus the US) will reconvene to finalise their commitments. Sandwiched between them is the most important US general election since, well, the last one.

It is always tempting to hype up forthcoming fixtures as 鈥渧ital鈥� or 鈥渓ast-gasp鈥�. But the importance of these three can be in no doubt. If they go the wrong way, our last best shot at turning things around will have been lost, and the future will look bleak. In the event that they go well, maybe we will look back on 2020 as the year the penny finally dropped.

So what is at stake? Let鈥檚 start in Kunming. This really is a vital one because the current , called the Aichi targets, expires this year and is up for renegotiation. Those ambitious targets set out to halt the loss of biodiversity within a decade and make progress towards reversing it, as per the UN鈥檚 goal of living in harmony with nature by 2050. Unsurprisingly, they haven鈥檛 been going well.

An assessment published halfway through the 10-year programme warned that countries were failing miserably and that the targets were already slipping out of reach. It fell on deaf ears: it is now inevitable that most of the targets will be missed. According to a paper published in last month, of the 54 components of the targets, only five can report good progress, while 21 have seen poor progress or gone backwards.

Even the bright spots carry a health warning. Yes, 15 per cent of land and fresh water and 7.5 per cent of the ocean are now protected 鈥� not far off the respective targets of 17 and 10 per cent 鈥� but they are often poorly managed and still leave too many important biodiversity hotspots unprotected.

All of which make Kunming away a really tough fixture 鈥� yet a winnable one. The host nation, China, is setting it up as a global test of its 鈥渆cological civilisation鈥� vision for transformative change across all sectors of society. What emerges from the meeting will tell us a lot about who is in the ascendancy, especially whether China really can take global leadership on the environment.

Which brings us to the Glasgow climate negotiations. These are slightly less crunchy than the biodiversity talks, but are still the most important fixture since Paris 2015, when negotiators won an unexpected victory by agreeing to hold warming to well below 2掳C. Since then, however, the game has reverted to type. We are still on track for at least 3掳C of warming and the most recent talks, in Madrid last month, achieved little but a return to loggerheads and can-kicking.

Can we expect any better this year? Much hangs on whether the US鈥檚 expected withdrawal from the Paris deal 鈥� due to be confirmed just before Glasgow 鈥� precipitates its renegotiation, a collapse of the entire system or renewed determination to get it done without the US. , expert .

A day before the withdrawal, there is another huge fixture: the US election, which will decide not only the next president but also who controls Congress. There are many unknowns between now and then 鈥� not least who will be on the presidential ballot 鈥� but one possible result is that the Democrats win the White House and retain the House of Representatives. That could fire the starting pistol for the Green New Deal, a gigantic infrastructure project designed to turn the US economy into a powerhouse of sustainable prosperity and a model for how to transform the world. Or it could be business as usual under a re-elected, re energised and unimpeachable Donald Trump.

How these three crucial fixtures pan out is still anyone鈥檚 guess. Mine is that we end 2020 in an even worse state than we started it: lofty new commitments but no real action on biodiversity, still no meaningful climate agreement and the Green New Deal dead in the water. But maybe I鈥檓 being deliberately pessimistic. As any sports fan will tell you ahead of a crunch, it鈥檚 the hope that kills you.