On October 9, 2019, GDFCF's Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs presented at the preparatory meeting for the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNCCC), dubbed PreCOP25. Costa Rica was, for the first time, the host of this conference, the most important climate change event in the world. As Costa Rica Environment and Energy Minister Carlos Manuel Rodríguez said at the conference, "PreCOP is very important because it prepares countries in the context of the negotiations to know what are the political positions that we will see reflected in the climate negotiations." The full conference will be held in Chile this December. The title of Dan's talk was: "Bioalfa of Costa Rica: Bioalfabetization for Sustainable Biodiversity and Climate Change." In the talk, Dan said: "A bioliterate and decarbonized tropical country is biodeveloped. It will conserve and retain its million wild species because it wants them." He added that BioAlfa is, with DNA barcoding, "constructing a library of global life, a guide to the encyclopedia of life. Eight billion people on the same team." Costa Rica President Carlos Alvarado, speaking to the delegates, said, "Costa Rica has built a huge environmental legacy and today we can send a clear message that it is possible to the world. This is for our children, for the generations to come... The point is clear: environmental ambition is not only ethically correct with the present and future generations, but it is profitable." An article about the event can be found here.
