UN talks on saving nature face financial hurdles

CALI, COLUMBIA: The world’s largest conservation conference concluded Saturday (November 2) in Colombia without agreement on a roadmap to boost funding for species protection.

With other successes under its belt, the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was suspended by President Susana Muhamad as negotiations took almost twelve hours longer than planned and delegates began leaving to catch flights .

The exodus left the summit without a quorum for decision-making, but CBD spokesman David Ainsworth told AFP it would resume at a later date to discuss outstanding issues.

“We will continue to work because this crisis is too big and we cannot stop,” Muhamad told AFP after declaring the Cali COP closed.

The conference, the largest gathering of its kind to date with approximately 23,000 registered delegates, was tasked with assessing and increasing progress toward achieving 23 goals set in Canada two years ago to reduce predatory destruction of nature’s wealth by ending humanity by 2030.

They include placing 30 percent of land and sea under protection and restoring 30 percent of degraded ecosystems by 2030, reducing pollution and phasing out agricultural and other subsidies that harm nature.

To this end, it was agreed in 2022 that $200 billion per year should be made available to protect biodiversity by 2030, including the transfer of $30 billion per year from rich to poor countries.