Commentary
At the UN Biodiversity Conference, a defeatist atmosphere pervades
The perception that time is short and the stakes are very high was palpable, and in the plenary statements on the first day of discussions, the tensions and the blocs of interests that will have to find middle ground and compromise solutions were already evident.
It’s not as hot as in Cali, Colombia [translator’s note: which hosted the first part of the UN Biodiversity Conference back in 2024], and there isn’t the same festive atmosphere, overwhelming civil society participation or large attendance of 23,000 official delegates. Now there are only 1,500 officials present, with very few ministers among them, at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome to take part in the second, and hopefully final, part of the UN Biodiversity Conference. Among those absent is Italian Environment and Energy Security Minister Fratin, whose office is just a few hundred meters from the COP venue but for whom biodiversity protection is clearly not high on the agenda.
A defeatist atmosphere could be felt among the halls of the FAO, with attendees perhaps resigned to the fact that an agreement that can make everyone happy is unlikely to be reached. Among the main issues under discussion during these days were mobilizing financial resources for biodiversity, establishing an effective monitoring mechanism, and establishing procedures for planning, monitoring, reporting, and reviewing the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework established at COP15 in Canada in 2022. Having national reporting systems and clear indicators of progress is more urgent than ever, all the more so in light of the research published a few days ago by Carbon Brief and The Guardian which found that more than half of the countries that submitted national plans to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have not committed to protecting 30 percent of their land and water by 2030.
The situation is alarming, and there is an urgent need to put in place binding multilateral initiatives. In a message sent to the delegates by the UN Secretary-General at the opening session on February 25, António Guterres urged all parties to “do all they can to find common ground, and seek solutions. Multilateralism is our only hope. Nature cannot wait.”
In her speech at the opening session, Astrid Shomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), wanted to highlight the achievements in Cali. Among them, she pointed to the approval of Article 8j, which guarantees participation for indigenous peoples and local communities; the establishment of the Cali Fund, a new financial fund for biodiversity conservation that will collect contributions from companies that profit from the use of Digital Sequence Information (DSI); decisions on ecologically significant marine areas; and, finally, the establishment of a working group that aims to look at the COPs on climate, biodiversity and desertification in a synergistic perspective, starting with the understanding that the climate and biodiversity crises are interrelated crises and systemic solutions are needed. The perception that time is short and the stakes are very high was palpable, and in the plenary statements on the first day of discussions, the tensions and the blocs of interests that will have to find middle ground and compromise solutions were already evident.
One of the hot issues that began to be discussed in Cali and on which countries from the global North and South have become polarized is the means of allocating funds for the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The key point of the discussion, from which the negotiations in Rome would start, was mainly Article 21, which establishes the functioning of the financial mechanism and the possibility of setting up an additional dedicated fund for the protection of biodiversity. Such a fund should be controlled by the COP itself and not by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), an institution run by the World Bank and deeply influenced by international conservationist NGOs.
According to the countries of the South, the GEF’s funds end up allocated to different environmental areas, and poorer countries fear that biodiversity will receive less attention than other global priorities. Just as with the climate COPs, where it was decided to establish the Green Climate Fund (GCF), separate from the GEF, developing countries want a similar mechanism for biodiversity, with funding that is direct and less conditional. So it’s not just a question of how much money, but of who should manage access to it and how.
The demands for funding are clear: according to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022, it is planned to mobilize at least $200 billion annually by 2030. In addition, the agreement aims to reduce biodiversity-damaging incentives by at least $500 billion a year by 2030.
The second day of negotiations began with a motion introduced by the Congo delegation calling for a halt to the discussion on monitoring systems and for going straight to discussing the funding article. IIt took hours to work out how the vote would take place, an impasse that put all the weakness of global diplomacy on display, stuck on debating the day’s agenda.
Meanwhile, outside the FAO headquarters, ecological organizations that came together under the Climate Pride banner staged a multispecies protest performance expressing the forceful demand that decisions be made quickly to protect both biodiversity and human rights. And to do so with respect for indigenous peoples and local communities, who historically have been protecting 80 percent of biodiversity at the global level.
Laura Greco is President of the A Sud NGO.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/cop-biodiversita-attesa-capitale on 2025-02-27