COP16 president hopeful of ‘major announcements’ soon

Colombian Environment Minister and COP16 president Susana Muhamad (C) speaks during the opening ceremony of the COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia, on October 21, 2024. The world’s biggest nature protection conference opened in Colombia Monday with its president calling for urgent action and financing to reverse humankind’s voracious destruction of biodiversity. “The planet doesn’t have time to lose,” Colombian Environment Minister and COP16 president Susana Muhamad told delegates from about 196 countries at a plenary session. (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / Agence France-Presse)

CALI, Colombia — The Colombian host and president of the UN’s COP16 biodiversity summit said Wednesday she expected “major announcements” soon regarding negotiations to increase funding and political commitment against the destruction of nature.

The 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) opened Monday in the city of Cali with the urgent task of devising ways to ensure 23 UN targets agreed upon two years ago can be met by 2030 to “halt and reverse” species loss.

Giving an update on progress, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said in a statement there were still “important differences between the parties” on “resource mobilization.”

However, “a methodology has already been agreed upon to address (the differences), and I think this is positive,” she said.

“There is great expectation that in the coming days, there will be major announcements of agreement between the parties,” the minister added.

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About 23,000 delegates, including some 100 government ministers and seven heads of state, are accredited for what is the largest-ever biodiversity COP, running until November 1 and themed “Peace with Nature.”

With about a million known species worldwide estimated to be at risk of extinction, delegates have their work cut out for them.

There are only five years left to achieve the target of placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under protection by 2030.

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On Sunday, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged countries to “convert words into action” and fatten the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) created last year to meet the UN targets.

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

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

A key goal of the COP is to agree on a mechanism for sharing the profits of genetic information taken from plants and animals – for medicinal use for instance – with the communities they come from.

Muhamad said negotiations in this regard “are progressing at a good pace.”