UN agrees in extremis to mobilize $200 billion to protect nature

BarcelonaThere are in the world One million natural species in danger of extinction. The Wildlife has been reduced by 69% in the last 50 years. That's why governments around the world have taken action.agreement finally reached in 2022 in Montreal to protect at least 30% of ecosystems by 2030, but it was necessary to see how this enormous task would be financed. This was the objective of the UN Biodiversity Summit COP16 held last November in Colombia and which ended without an agreement. Negotiations have resumed this week in Rome, and finally the pact was sealed around midnight on Thursday, when the deadline expired. The 150 governments meeting in the Italian capital have agreed to "mobilize 200 billion dollars annually from 2030" to finance the protection and restoration of ecosystems with public and private money and with various financial figures. Funds that include – and this was the great stumbling block – direct aid from rich countries to poorer ones: it will be 20 billion annually from 2025 and 30 billion annually from 2030.

Colombia, Susana Muhamad, late on Thursday after hitting the gavel to certify the agreement. The COP16 plenary has applauded the final agreement after three days of intense negotiations in Rome. The summit was stalled in Cali (Colombia) last November precisely because of the lack of consensus on this financial mechanism, which had strained the talks until the last minute. There, already in extra time and out of time, Muhamad introduced this provision of money in the final text of the agreement, but it was so late that most political representatives had already taken flights back to their countries and there was not the necessary quorum to be able to vote. Thus, the negotiation was resumed in Rome this past Tuesday and, although at times it seemed that there was a reversal in the proposed text, the agreed financial mechanism has finally been confirmed.

This mechanism does not satisfy everyone, because the only part that is direct aid is reduced to 30,000 million dollars annually, while for the fight against the climate crisis 300,000 million dollars have been agreed annually. But at least it finally provides for a global funding for the enormous task of protecting and restoring natural ecosystems around the world, a milestone that is no small feat in the current geopolitical context.

The United States was not at the meeting because it is not a party to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, but the shockwave of its extractive policies and trade war has been felt in the reluctance of many countries to close a very ambitious agreement.

Sharing the benefits of genetic resources extracted from nature

What was agreed in time in Colombia was the creation of another fund, the so-called Cali Fund, which was formally created on Tuesday at the start of the talks in Rome. This is another mechanism by which companies that exploit the genetic wealth of the natural resources of a territory (whether by making drugs, cosmetics, biotechnology or any other use made of the genetic information of these organisms, animals or plants, including through artificial intelligence) will have to share a part of the benefits in this territory. And it is expected that at least 50% of this money will revert to the indigenous peoples and local communities that inhabit the places with the greatest biodiversity on the planet from where this crucial information for science and industry is extracted.

Susana Muhamad, who has led this summit in Rome as president of the COP16 in Cali, will leave her position as Minister of the Environment after this meeting. He does so for reasons that have nothing to do with biodiversity: he tendered his resignation to the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, along with three other ministers who did the same, in protest against the appointment of Armando Benedetti as Minister of the Interior, a controversial politician accused of corruption and sexist aggression.