‘Not Ambitious Enough’: COP16 Delegates Disappointed at Lack of Finance Deal Despite Breakthroughs on Genetic Data and Indigenous Representation

The biodiversity summit was meant for countries to follow through on their pledges to halt the destruction of nature made two years ago. Instead, it ended in disarray and left many key issues unresolved.

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A biodiversity summit meant to advance progress on nature conservation has left many disappointed and several key issues unresolved.

Some 15,000 attendees, including a dozen heads of state, 103 ministers and over 1,000 international journalists flocked to Cali, Colombia to attend the summit, also known as COP16. It was the first summit since 196 countries adopted the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) two years ago.

In Cali, these same governments were supposed to “convert words into actions” and deliver on their nature conservation pledges. These included a goal of restoring and protecting at least 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas by 2030, better known as the 30X30 target.

But key issues of COP16 such as funding and monitoring of progress were left unanswered as the final plenary session came to an end in the early hours of Saturday, instead of Friday evening as originally scheduled. By then, more than half of countries representatives had already left the summit.

Several countries including Brazil and Fiji criticized the organizers for scheduling discussions about critical issues to the final hour, the Guardian reported.

“We really question the lack of legitimacy of discussing such an important issue at the end of the Cop,” the Brazilian negotiator Maria Angelica Ikeda said as the critical issue of resource mobilization was being discussed. “We should have started discussing these issues at the beginning … We should have decisions guaranteeing that we have the resources we need.”

By the time negotiations ended, nine out of ten Pacific Island countries delegation had already left the meeting as they did not have the funds to change flights, leaving Michelle Baleikanacea, Fiji’s negotiator, alone.

Achievements

Delegates agreed to set up a global fund to collect economic resources from the use of digitalized genetic sequences and to ensure their fair and equitable distribution based on criteria such as conservation needs and biodiversity richness in the countries.

The long-awaited deal will put an end to a lucrative business that did not benefit the nature-rich countries from where the data originates.

Countries also agreed to establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous Peoples in future decision-making processes on nature conservation. The deal, described by many as a “watershed moment,” builds on a growing movement to recognize the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting land and helping combat climate change.

Indigenous peoples and local communities are often described as the “guardians” of the planet. Research shows that while the world’s 370 million Indigenous peoples make up less than 5% of the world’s total human population, they manage over 25% of the world’s land surface, and support 80% of the world’s biodiversity. 

“With this unprecedented move, the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] has become the first UN environmental process to create a dedicated Subsidiary Body for the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities,” said Lakpa Nuri Sherpa, Co-chair, International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB).

“This landmark step not only reshapes the CBD’s approach to biodiversity and traditional knowledge but also sets a powerful example for Indigenous Peoples involved in the Climate Change Convention and other mechanisms, inspiring the establishment of similar permanent spaces for collaboration and partnership at the global level,” he added.

What’s Missing?

Ahead of the summit, the countries that two years ago established the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework were required to submit national plans on how they planned to achieve the framework’s targets. However, only 32 out of the 193 CBD Parties – including the European Union – had submitted their revised and updated plans on time and just a handful more did so during the conference.

COP16 also failed to achieve one of its main goals: establish how progress on this decade’s 30×30 target would be monitored. A draft agreement may have been ready but countries ran out of time to discuss the most pressing and divisive topics, the Guardian reported.

The world has never met a target on halting nature’s destruction.

Linda Krueger, The Nature Conservancy’s head of delegation and global director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy, said countries had “failed on the first hurdle to show that they have the ambition and will to fully put the vital plans of the GBF into effect.”

“The irreversible effects of biodiversity loss will not pause while Parties figure out a process for approving the budget. Urgent action to finalize these negotiations must be the priority of all Parties,” Krueger said.

A promise countries made in 2022 to raise $200 billion a year by 2030, including $20 billion to be given by rich countries to developing nations, to fund nature protection, did also fail to materialize.

“[W]ith the COP suspended without the adoption of a resource mobilization strategy to scale up finance for biodiversity – and mainstream biodiversity in the financial planning of governments, the financial sector, and businesses – little traction can be made on any of the agreements at all,” said Krueger.

Marco Lambertini, convener of the Nature Positive Initiative, said the world is “falling dangerously short of what’s needed to deliver a nature-positive future” as countries failed to address the finance gap of around $20 billion a year to support the 30X30 target.

Nature Is Disappearing

Global biodiversity has been dwindling at an alarming rate.

According to World Wildlife Fund’s 2024 Living Planet Report published earlier this month, there has been a global average loss of 73% in mammal, bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian species since 1970. The steep loss is largely due to man-made habitat destruction from unsustainable agricultural activities. 

New data compiled by a consortium of nature funders and environmental NGOs and published last week also revealed that only 2.8% of the world’s ocean are likely protected “effectively,” with governments significantly off track to meet their 2030 target.  

Only 8% of the world’s ocean is currently designated as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), zones where a government has placed limits on human activity in a bid to protect marine habitats and species for the good of the ocean, society, economy and culture.

Marine protected areas remain loosely and inconsistently defined and implemented by countries worldwide, and even those that committed to “high” of “full” protection may not actually implement or resource it in a way that is likely to achieve it, according to the report.

Since the adoption of the GBF two years ago, the number of MPAs has increased by a mere 0.5%. At this rate, just 9.7% of global marine areas will be protected, the report warns, far less than the international target.

Featured image: UN Biodiversity/Flickr.