Just a quick Nagoya related sidebar (see other Nagoya COP10 posts here and here).
I’m not sure if it’s deliberate or if it’s accidental, but the UN seems to be on a roll with ironic convention acronyms. In case, you weren’t aware, a convention is international politics jargon for “treaty.” There’s two in particular that involve the environmental landscape:
First is the U.N.F.C.C.C. — this is short for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the thing that gave us Kyoto and Copenhagen), but as my friend Allen pointed out, doesn’t it sound more like a curse that a UN member with a stutter might say when working with other UN members?
Then we have the C.B.D., the Convention on Biological Diversity, the subject of my ongoing posts on Nagoya (part 1|part 2). Except that CBD is also the acronym for Cannabidiol, which according to Wiki is, “a cannabinoid found in Cannabis. It is a major constituent of the plant, representing up to 40% in its extracts.”
We can only hope that there isn’t any confusion on this matter for the delegates at Nagoya.