On the last day of the UN -Top expansion COP16 In Rome, some 150 countries corresponded to mutual concessions to reform the financing of nature conservation. But the question of whether a new background to raise 1.2 billion dollars a year until 2030 should be created has not yet been resolved.
A long applause from the delegates, relieved and exhausted, greeted the hammera Muhamad Hamerslag, the former Minister of Environment of Colombia, who provides this winding second part of the 16th Conference of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB), which was called, called it COP16.2.
Rich countries and developing countries had already agreed that it was urgent to remedy deforestation, over -exploitation of resources and pollution that endanger food, health, climate regulation and to exploit a million species. And finally they have also adopted rules and Reliable indicators that are expected to verify before COP17It is planned for 2026 in Armenia,
Historical Agreement in the COP16 of Rome
The COP16 of the biological diversity agreement ended last night at the FAO head office in Rome His second part, after the plenary meeting was suspended due to a lack of quorum in Cali, Colombia, on November 2. The blockade mainly took place as a result of a very sour debate about the financial mechanism and the strategy for mobilizing resources.
A discussion that was dragged in 1992 from the start of the biological diversity convention: the article 21 provides for the Creation of a specific economic) mechanism to finance world actions to protect biodiversityBut Article 39 found that, for the time being, a tool that depends on the World Bank, the World Environment Fund (FMAM or Gef) would be used.
In Rome, the debate is conditioned by two positions: on the one hand the countries of the Global South (led by the African group, in particular the Democratic Republic Congo), can denounce that the FMAM is in the hands of the enriched countries (including vs. uu. It is inefficient and hinders the access of many poor countries to financing.
That is why they require that Article 21 of the Convention must be observed and that a specific fund is created under the mandate of the conference of the parties. On the other hand, the EU, Japan or Canada believe that the FMAM is sufficient and that a new fund will no longer mean financing. Behind the speeches is also based on who has the key to the box. South countries want COP to be, where all countries have the same weightWhile those in the north the The status quo.
Solving the comparison in the COP16 of Rome
The resolution of the comparison is ultimatelyBranding by the global northern countries that every fund must be under the agent’s mandateIn exchange for studying all options: reform and improve existing funds or creating a new one. All this in a process that will last in 2030 to COP19, so that the entire process is postponed. In the metaphor of the Mexican delegation: “We agree to put the plate on the table (tools), but the food (funds) is still missing.”
The other great document on financing is the Strategy for the mobilization of resources, in which a broad strategy is reflected in reaching the planned money To support the preservation of biodiversity: 20,000 million annually from 2025 and 30,000 million annually from 2030, of public funds. The most worrying for environmental activists is a clear use of the agent for the search for additional investments in the biodiversity of up to 200,000 million per year in the private sector.
Nobody calls there one Very serious shortage of the financing of nature conservation, but the ultra -liberal vision has been imposed To bet everything to encourage companies to invest in biodiversity. In practice, this includes biodiversity and compensation credit schemes that would facilitate the justification and green washing of their activities at the expense of nature. In the opinion of environmental activists, such market mechanisms are a very serious error that can only hollow out the best preserved ecosystems to create much worse substitutes.
In The most optimistic part, the agent has repeated the recognition that perverse subsidies for destructive activities They are one of the largest current threats for biodiversity and that must be urgently identified and eliminated.
It is another positive element Approval of the World -Biodiversity framework monitoring framework for biodiversityWith a system of indicators to analyze general progress in the direction of compliance with the 23 goals that must in 2030 inhibit the regression of species and ecosystems. Unfortunately, no country will be generated to land that indicates that those who contribute less to the world objective. In addition, some important indicators such as the environmental impact of global consumption have been eliminated, but the indicators of ecological footprint and pesticide concentration have been maintained.
The ohEcologist organizations consider the existing delay in the approval of national plans and goals very worrying To apply the World Biodiversity Framework-Montheal Framework, because at the start of this second part of the COP16 only 46 countries had approved and presented the biological diversity agreement. Without these national plans or goals, compliance with the mission that is planned for 2030 to stop the loss of biodiversity is highly compromised.