COP16 Biodiversity: The World Narrowly Adopts a Plan to Finance the Preservation of Nature

On the last day of the COP16 extension, wealthy countries and the developing world reluctantly agreed to mutual compromises to adopt a five-year work plan.

« It was a difficult path to get here, » said the conference president, Susana Muhamad. Four months after a resounding failure in Colombia, world countries managed to secure a delicate compromise on financing the preservation of nature in Rome on Thursday, February 27. « It’s adopted, » announced Susana Muhamad, who is also Colombia’s Minister of the Environment, as she gave a traditional gavel strike, which was met with long applause from the plenary in Rome. « Well done, » was heard from the audience.

They narrowly avoided another failure for environmental multilateralism. « This is a victory for biodiversity protection, and it is a political victory against those who want to make us believe that international cooperation does not work to defend the environment, » reacted France’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

On the third and final day of the COP16 United Nations conference on biodiversity, rich countries and the developing world made mutual compromises to adopt a five-year work plan aimed at unlocking the billions necessary to halt the destruction of nature and better distribute funds to developing countries. « Our efforts show that multilateralism can bring hope in a period of geopolitical uncertainty, » praised Canada’s Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault.

Indicators to Track Humanity’s Efforts Adopted

In the same session, countries also adopted reliable rules and indicators designed to measure and verify humanity’s efforts to save nature by COP17 in 2026, in Armenia. « I announce that we have given arms, legs, and muscles to the Kunming-Montreal roadmap, » through which countries committed in 2022 to achieving 23 goals to stop the destruction of nature by 2030. The most emblematic of these goals aims to place 30% of land and seas in protected areas (currently 17% and 8%, respectively, according to the UN).

To fund this strategy, countries must raise nature protection spending to 200 billion dollars per year by 2030, with 30 billion dollars to come from developed nations to poorer countries (compared to about 15 billion dollars in 2022). The agreement reached in Rome defers the decision on whether to create a new dedicated fund under the authority of the Convention on Biological Diversity to 2028, at COP18, as strongly demanded by African countries. Alternatively, the existing instruments, like the Global Environment Facility, may be reformed to become more accessible and equitable for developing countries.

« This text is a victory for the positions defended by France. It does not create a fund, which was our red line and which would have added to the fragmentation of global biodiversity finance, » said Agnès Pannier-Runacher. It also allows « the mobilization of all resources, national and international, private and public, » she also noted, before praising « the broadening of the donor base, which is an invitation for emerging countries to contribute more to global biodiversity financing. »

Source: francetvinfo