COP16 tries (again) to decide how to use $200 billion for nature

All roads lead to Rome, as the saying goes in ancient times. But will there be a consensus on how to finance the actions needed to protect biodiversity on our planet with $200 billion a year until 2030? From Tuesday to Thursday, nations will attempt to reach an agreement in the second part of the 16th Conference of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, COP16, in the Italian capital , following the impasse in negotiations at the conference in Cali, Colombia, in November.

One new development is that the Portuguese Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, will be present at this second abbreviated session of COP16 in Rome. “This is excellent,” comments Francisco Ferreira, president of the Zero association. Graça Carvalho had not been to Cali, which coincided with the discussion in Portugal of the State Budget for 2025, and at the previous conference – COP15, in Montreal – Minister Duarte Cordeiro was also absent.

At first glance, the outlook is not good. “The differences between the European Union, African countries and South American countries, especially Brazil, are still on the table,” Francisco Ferreira, who was in Cali in early November when COP16 was abruptly suspended due to lack of quorum, explained to Azul .

The main issues at stake are who will manage the funds from the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF): whether it will continue to be the Global Environment Facility (which is supported by the EU, Japan and Canada, i.e. the bloc of the most industrialized countries), or whether a new fund will be created, with a new management system and a new chain of responsibility, less bureaucratic and more accessible, as supported by developing countries.

$ 200 billion a year by 2030 is the money needed to meet the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

“This is a key problem, and in these months between Cali and Rome, no consensus has been reached. Unless there is a U-turn, or some form of conciliation, we will continue in the same situation,” says Francisco Ferreira.

Specifically, the signatory countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity must decide how to raise 200 billion dollars per year, until 2030, to meet the target set out in the Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed at COP15 in Montreal.

The document has a series of goals and objectives to be met in terms of nature conservation so that, by 2030, we can have 30% of the planet under some form of protection − and money is needed to achieve them.

“ The EU and its Member States remain committed to delivering on the Global Biodiversity Framework , ” EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall said in a press release on Monday. “ In these abbreviated negotiations, we must find a way forward together to continue mobilising resources from all sources , ” she stressed.

Lots of money

“We are talking about a lot of money, and it is government money, not private money. There are 200 billion in public funding for biodiversity until 2030, and also 300 billion until 2035 for climate change ,” stresses Francisco Ferreira, mentioning the agreement at the last summit of the United Nations Climate Change Convention, in Baku, Azerbaijan, to explain how serious the problem is.

Still on the subject of financing, it is necessary to decide how the Cali Fund , approved in the first part of COP16, will work. It will be financed with what companies earn from the profits of genetic information from nature. “There is always a long time between the creation and the operationalization of funds. Take the example of the loss and damage fund , which was created in Sharm el-Sheikh [COP27 climate change] and was only operationalized in Dubai [COP28], a year later”, notes Francisco Ferreira.

The prospects for success are not the best, but these summits are never won (or lost) from the start. The president of COP16, the now-resigned Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, sent the countries a “ note with reflections ” on the topic of “ resource mobilization ” – that is, financing – with some ideas and, in particular, suggestions for clarifying the language.

She even went as far as to draw up a glossary so that the negotiating parties could have a common vocabulary, because that could be one of the main problems, the minister said. “ The disagreement could, at least in part, be rooted in different interpretations of the terms used, ” she wrote, in an attempt to facilitate the talks.