UN Biodiversity Conference ends in limbo as countries spar over funding

By Natasha White and Zahra Hirji

 

  The 16th United Nations Biodiversity Conference ended abruptly Saturday as countries disagreed in overtime talks about the creation of a new global nature fund. 

After negotiations in Cali, Colombia, stretched through Friday night and into Saturday morning and delegates began to depart to travel home, Susana Muhamad, the host country’s environment minister and the president of COP16, ultimately suspended the summit for lack of a quorum. 

 

The main focus of COP16 was to advance a landmark biodiversity pact adopted in Montreal two years ago. Through the so-called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, almost 200 countries agreed to reverse a steep decline in nature by the end of the decade and come up with hundreds of billions of dollars for that purpose. 

 

 

Heads Of State Meet For The COP16 Biodiversity Conference

Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, right, kisses the forehead of an environmental activist during COP16. Photographer: Jair F. Coll/Bloomberg

“The outcome of COP16 represents a mixed bag,” said Ginette Hemley, senior vice president for wildlife at World Wildlife Fund US. There was “real progress” on issues including benefit-sharing related to genetic information and health and biodiversity, she said. “But the lack of progress on finance will hold back efforts to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.”

 

Notwithstanding the last-minute drama, COP16 achieved some of its goals. Countries will move forward with a new Cali Fund to protect nature, to be paid into by companies that sell products, such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, based on genetic data from the natural world. 

 

But in other ways, what was dubbed at the outset a “COP of implementation” fell short of ambitions. The majority of parties failed to submit their plans to meet the 2022 pact, and rich nations pledged just a trickle of new funds.  

 

The conference hasn’t been closed, said David Ainsworth of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. When and where it will resume is still to be determined. Anything already adopted at COP16 still stands and is operative, Ainsworth said. 

 

That includes the new agreement on sharing financial proceeds derived from digitized genetic resources. It’s aimed at capturing a small portion of proceeds when, for example, companies use plants’ genetic information to create new drugs. Under its terms, companies over a certain size in sectors like pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and cosmetics are to contribute 1% of their profits or 0.1% of revenue to the Cali Fund. The fund will be overseen by the 196 countries that signed up to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

 

The mechanism isn’t mandatory. Proceeds will be allocated to countries for nature protection, with at least half “where appropriate” going to Indigenous peoples and local communities.

 

For Pierre du Plessis, former negotiator for the African group of countries that negotiate as a bloc, it amounts to “a small step forward.” Du Plessis said this agreement sets the mechanism in motion and outlines a process to improve it, but “is unlikely to mobilize funding at the scale or pace required.”

 

The complex technicalities, political differences and lobbying by interest groups pushed negotiations on the issue to the wire.

 

“This is the most complex issue I’ve ever had to negotiate,” said Gustavo Pachecho, Brazil’s lead negotiator on the topic, likening it to quantum physics. 

 

Delegates failed to agree, however, on a revised strategy to raise and distribute more funds to countries to protect nature. That raises doubts ahead of the global climate summit COP29, set to begin Nov. 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the key question will be how to raise money to help poorer nations cut emissions and deal with climate-change impacts. 

 

“Climate change and biodiversity loss are twin crises,” said Lina Barrera, senior vice president for policy at Conservation International. While COP16 saw some progress on mutually beneficial steps, “it lacked sufficient ambition,” she said. “We can’t let this carry from Cali through to Baku.”

 

Crystal Davis, global director of food, land and water at the World Resources Institute, said, “We urge countries to deliver strong finance outcomes at the upcoming G20 and COP29 meetings, where they should continue bridging nature and climate action for people and planet alike.”

 

In Cali, setting up a new nature fund was a key demand of developing countries. They see the current fund, the Global Environment Facility’s Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), as dominated by rich countries that control the purse strings.

 

The fund reappeared on the table Friday morning. When delegates got around to discussing it on Saturday, developed countries resisted. An EU negotiator said the bloc couldn’t accept a new official development assistance fund “further fragmenting the biodiversity finance landscape. A new fund doesn’t mean new funding.” 

 

The negotiations were deadlocked before Colombia suspended proceedings. 

 

“Developed countries refused the resource mobilization decision in a bloc, as a sole voice,” Pacheco said. “Shame on them.”

 

Heads Of State Meet For The COP16 Biodiversity Conference

Attendees arrive at COP16 on Oct. 29. Photographer: Jair F. Coll/Bloomberg

“Of course, we would have liked to have achieved more on resource mobilization,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, “but we will not slow down the pace of work. 2030 is rapidly approaching and action cannot wait.” 

 

Some 150 countries missed a deadline to submit their plans for meeting the goals of the 2022 pact. There was little progress on a target to redirect $500 billion per year to nature-friendly activities from harmful subsidies, which are estimated to now top $2.6 trillion annually. And developed countries pledged a paltry $163 million in extra funds to GBFF, adding to its existing $245 million pot, but still just a tiny fraction of the multi-billion-dollar financing gap that rich nations agreed to plug by next year. China contributed $200 million separately. 

 

In the final hours of talks, Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of global advocacy at WWF International, said the 2022 pact was in “grave peril” due to ongoing spats over the money. Around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, the Philippines made an emotive intervention about its loss of species to typhoons and coral bleaching. Half an hour later, Muhamad asked: “Australia, are you awake?”   

 

Still, clear progress was made on other agenda items. These include a global action plan on biodiversity and health; a decision to help governments choose where to best deploy marine protection measures; and a permanent place for Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Convention on Biological Diversity. 

 

Leila Salazar-López, executive director of the nonprofit Amazon Watch, called the creation of a permanent body to include Indigenous peoples in decision-making a “historic victory.”

 

COP16 saw record turnout, with over 20,000 delegates registered to attend the formal summit in the so-called blue zone and double the number of businesses and financial institutions that went to COP15. Brazil sent about 270 official delegates and Colombia sent roughly 460. In the informal green zone — more like a festival held in downtown Cali — the government estimates that more than 800,000 people took part, testament to Colombia’s quest to make this a “people’s COP.”

 

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