Global Deal on Nature Finance Thwarted in Overtime Talks at COP16
Negotiations fell apart at the 11th hour when the EU, Switzerland and other developed countries objected to the creation of a new biodiversity fund.
(Bloomberg) -- The 16th United Nations Biodiversity Conference, held in Cali, Colombia, was suspended on Saturday as countries failed to agree on the creation of a new global fund for nature, after tense talks that stretched through Friday night. Establishing the fund was a key demand of developing countries, but the EU, Switzerland and other developed nations raised last-minute objections.
An EU negotiator said the bloc could not accept a new official development assistance fund “further fragmenting the biodiversity finance landscape. A new fund does not mean new funding.”
With delegates trickling out of the closing plenary to travel home, COP President Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, invoked a quorum and then announced there were not enough people to deliberate, suspending the conference.
The conference has not 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 an agreement on a separate new fund for countries to protect nature, to be paid into by companies that sell products, like drugs and cosmetics, based on genetic data from the natural world.
Also still standing is the creation of a permanent body to include Indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making, which Leila Salazar-López, executive director of the nonprofit Amazon Watch, called a “historic victory.”
Delegates at the two-week-long COP16 worked to advance on a landmark global biodiversity pact adopted by 196 nations in Montreal two years ago.
Jiwoh Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s minister of environment and climate change, said, “Two years ago, we made a commitment to do better and be better. This COP has neither delivered that additional funding nor given us confidence that governments will work together to deliver it in a transparent and urgent manner.”
--With assistance from Andrea Jaramillo.
(Updates with comments from the EU, Leila Salazar-López and Jiwoh Abdulai.)
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Business NewsEconomyGlobal Deal on Nature Finance Thwarted in Overtime Talks at COP16
First Published:3 Nov 2024, 02:02 AM IST
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