India, which assumed presidency of the convention on biodiversity, has taken the lead to help find a way out of the logjam on the issue of resource mobilisation and circulated a text document for acceptance by the member countries.
Though ambitious goals, known as Aichi Targets to be achieved by 2020, have been set for protection of biodiversity, no agreement has been reached on how to raise money.
The bone of contention is that developing countries want the developed nations to liberally fund biodiversity conservation, while the latter want an accountable reporting framework to be put in place.
India has reportedly suggested setting interim targets to achieve the Aichi Targets as a way out of the logjam.
The Plenary of the Convention began this evening, but it took a long break to enable the delegates to come to an agreement on the issue of funding.
The biodiversity funding issue cast its shadow on other matters as well when they were taken up for adoption at the Plenary of the convention.
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With the EU and some others raising objections to certain parts of the documents, the matters concerning resource mobilisation (funding), ecosystems restoration, capacity building and the budget of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) were kept pending by Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, who chaired the Plenary in her capacity as the president of the CBD, for consideration later.
All other matters, 30 of them, had a more or less smooth adoption arrived at a consensus during the deliberations held in the working groups.
Meanwhile, the EU moved a proposal thanking India for hosting the 11th Conference of Parties (COP 11) which was endorsed by all other delegates. South Korea would host the next Conference of Parties (COP 12) in 2014.
The first-ever Conference of Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing on genetic resources (adopted in COP 10 in 2010) will be held in Korea along with COP 12.