UN nature talks in last-ditch race to break funding deadlock February 27, 2025

Dead fish on the bank of the polluted Santiago River in Mexico on July 17, 2024.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

UN nature talks in last-ditch race to break funding deadlock

by Benjamin LEGENDRE, Kelly MACNAMARA

Nations braced for a showdown over funding on the final day of UN nature talks in Rome on Thursday amid alarm over slow progress in the face of accelerating species loss.

Rich and developing countries largely agree on the scale of the crisis threatening the ecosystems and species on which humans depend for food, climate regulation, and economic prosperity.

But they are at odds over how to pay for nature conservation.

The negotiations are being overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, with the countries facing a range of challenges, from trade and debt concerns to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Although Washington has not joined the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the new US president, Donald Trump, has decided to suspend development funding through the United States Agency for International Development.

After two days of talks, negotiators received a new text on Wednesday that seeks to navigate between hotly contested red lines over whether or not to create a specific fund for biodiversity.

“We have no time to lose and the world is watching us, and we have a collective responsibility to show the world that multilateralism can work,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canada's environment minister.

Scientists have warned that a million species are threatened with extinction, while unsustainable agriculture and consumption are destroying forests, depleting soils, and spreading plastic pollution to even the most remote areas of the planet.

In a historic agreement for 2022, countries have agreed to halt the destruction of nature by the end of this decade.

Countries have already agreed to provide $200 billion a year in funding for nature by 2030, including $30 billion a year from the richest countries to the poorest.

Currently, the debate focuses mainly on how the funding is done.

'Disappointed'

Developing nations - led by Brazil and the African group - want the creation of a dedicated biodiversity fund, saying they are not adequately represented in existing mechanisms.

The rich nations - led by the European Union, Japan, and Canada - say that the creation of several funds fragments aid.

Disagreement on this issue caused the previous UN COP16 negotiations in Cali, Colombia, in November to stretch on for hours and end without an agreement.

Negotiators have until the end of the day on Thursday to come up with a plan, with a proposal on the table to postpone the final decision on a new fund until future UN negotiations, while suggesting reform of existing funding.

Brazil, which is hosting the UN climate talks later this year, warned that painful progress on finance could spill over into other treaty negotiations this year.

“We are a bit disappointed,” said Brazilian negotiator Maria Angelica Ikeda, speaking on behalf of the BRICS bloc of countries, which includes Russia, China, and India, at Wednesday night's plenary.

“We need to have more guarantees that we won't feel abandoned in the future.”

The failure to finalize the agreement in Cali was the first in a series of disappointing results for the planet at UN summits last year.

A climate finance deal at COP29 in Azerbaijan in November was deemed disappointing, while separate negotiations on desertification and plastic pollution stalled in December.

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