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

BarcelonaIn the world there are 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 agreedAgreement finally reached in 2022 in Montreal to protect at least 30% of ecosystems by 2030, but it remained to be seen how this enormous task would be financed. This was the objective of the UN COP16 Biodiversity Summit held last November in Colombia, which ended without an agreement. Negotiations resumed this week in Rome, and the pact was finally sealed around midnight on Thursday, just as the deadline expired. The 150 governments meeting in the Italian capital agreed to "mobilize $200 billion annually from 2030" to finance the protection and restoration of ecosystems with public and private money and various financial instruments. These funds include—and this was the big sticking point—direct aid from rich countries to poorer ones: $20 billion annually from 2025 and $30 billion annually from 2030.

Colombia's Susana Muhamad, late Thursday after giving the gavel to certify the agreement. The COP16 plenary session applauded the final agreement after three days of intense negotiations in Rome. The summit stalled in Cali, Colombia, last November precisely because of a lack of consensus on this financial mechanism, which had strained the talks until the last minute. There, already in the nick of time and out of time, Muhamad introduced this monetary provision into the final text of the agreement, but it was so late that most political representatives had already taken their flights back to their countries, and the necessary quorum for voting lacked. Negotiations thus resumed in Rome this past Tuesday, and although at times it seemed as if the proposed text was being reversed, the agreed-upon financial mechanism was finally confirmed.

This mechanism does not satisfy everyone, because the only direct aid component is reduced to $30 billion annually, while $300 billion annually has been agreed for the fight against the climate crisis. But at least it finally provides for the provision of global funding for the enormous task of protecting and restoring natural ecosystems around the world, a significant milestone 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 shock wave of its extractivist policies and trade war has been felt in the reluctance of many countries to reach a highly ambitious agreement.

Sharing the benefits of genetic resources extracted from nature

What was agreed upon in time in Colombia was the creation of another fund, the so-called Cali Fund, which was formally established this Tuesday at the start of the talks in Rome. This is another mechanism by which companies that exploit the genetic wealth of a territory's natural resources (whether for the production of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biotechnology, or any other use of the genetic information of these organisms, animals, or plants, including through artificial intelligence) will have to share a portion of the profits. 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 led this summit in Rome as president of COP16 in Cali, will step down as Minister of the Environment after this meeting. She does so for reasons unrelated to biodiversity: she submitted her resignation to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, along with three other ministers who did the same, in protest against the appointment of Armando Benedetti, a controversial politician accused of corruption and sexist attacks, as Interior Minister.