UN biodiversity summit makes 'very good progress': officials October 26, 2024

Colombian Environment Minister and COP16 President Susana Muhamad (C) reported “very good progress” in the UN negotiations on biodiversity.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

UN biodiversity summit makes 'very good progress': officials

The intense UN negotiations on ways to “halt and reverse” the loss of species by 2030 have made “very good progress,” officials said on Friday, as the summit in Colombia reached its halfway point.

The 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity opened on Monday in the city of Cali and runs until November 1st.

The theme, “Peace with Nature,” has the urgent task of creating monitoring and financing mechanisms to achieve 23 UN nature protection targets agreed upon in Canada two years ago.

COP16 president Susana Muhamad, Colombia's environment minister, said on Friday that there had been “very good progress in the negotiations,” adding that “a lot of work has moved forward during this week.”

Resource mobilization remains “one of the most difficult issues,” she told reporters in Cali, “because of the very different points of view of the parties.”

On Sunday, UN chief Antonio Guterres called on the 196 signatories of the biodiversity convention to “turn words into action” and fatten up a Global Biodiversity Framework Fund set up last year to meet UN targets.

So far, countries have made around 250 million dollars in commitments to the fund, according to monitoring agencies.

According to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, finalized in 2022, countries must mobilize at least $200 billion a year by 2030 for biodiversity, including $20 billion a year by 2025 from rich nations to help developing nations.

One of the main objectives of the COP in Cali is to agree on a mechanism to share the profits from genetic information obtained from plants and animals - for medicinal use, for example - with the communities where they come from.

On this issue, said Muhamad, “the parties are coming together on a common vision.”

Around 23,000 delegates, including almost 180 government ministers and seven heads of state, are accredited for what is the largest biodiversity COP ever.

With around one million known species worldwide estimated to be at risk of extinction, the delegates have a lot of work ahead of them.

There are only five years left to reach the target of putting 30% of land and sea areas under protection by 2030.

“The reason we are here today is because we understand that we are losing biodiversity at an unsustainable rate,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program.

“Progress in Cali will give momentum” to the process going forward, she added.

lab-mlr/acb