Cause for optimism at Cop15 – but could Bolsonaro scupper the deal for nature?

There are many reasons to suggest a deal to save the natural world is possible in Montreal, if division can be overcome and the Brazilian president doesn't cause problems

We are at the beginning of a busy end to the year. The summer holidays are over in the northern hemisphere, the world economy is creaking into recession, war is raging in Ukraine and there is the small matter of the most important biodiversity conference in more than a decade: Cop15.

Money will ultimately decide the fate of the summit and the ambition of the final text in Montreal this December, as will the mood after the climate Cop27, which ends two weeks earlier.

In a series of dispatches ahead of the Cop15 UN biodiversity conference in Montreal in December, we will be hearing from a secret negotiator who is from a developing country involved in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework negotiations.