COP16 global biodiversity talks to focus on financing

The UN's annual biodiversity talks (COP16) will be held in Cali, Colombia between 21 October and 1 November - an opportunity to take stock of the progress in raising funds for biodiversity since the Global Biodiversity Framework was agreed to in 2022.

In 2022, UN signatory countries agreed to the ambitious Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), committing to mobilise $200 billion per year for biodiversity by 2030, of which $30 billion  should come from international finance.

But the signatories are not on track to meet this target.

"I think if you look at investments and financial flows in the broadest sense, very little money is going to nature," Francine Pickup, Deputy Director of UNDP's Policy and Programme Bureau, told an event at the UN House in Brussels on Wednesday (2 October).

Private funding for nature

The UNDP is working with the EU to identify the tools and opportunities available to developing countries to attract funding for the protection or restoration of biodiversity.

To this end, Eva Mayerhofer, lead biodiversity specialist at the European Investment Bank (EIB), suggested offering companies and other financial institutions "better lending conditions, loan pricing, and (by) considering other types of incentives", noting that they should be encouraged to integrate biodiversity and nature into their decision-making processes.

In addition to encouraging more private sector investment in biodiversity protection, other levers were mentioned at the Brussels event and will be the subject of debate in Colombia, such as putting a price on ecosystem services or establishing a taxonomy of nature.

Pickup, for her part, spoke of the idea of ‘biodiversity credits’ based on the same model as for carbon, that is, putting a monetary value on protecting biodiversity - a concept not so dissimilar to the 'nature credits' recently proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

But Pickup acknowledges that as a first step, "we need to start by building the capacity of government and local communities in this area".

Damage limitation

The most important element, according to all panellists, is to reduce all financial flows that harm nature.

"There's no point in trying to invest in conservation if we know that negative investment in nature will continue willy-nilly, because it will overshadow anything we can do on the conservation side," said Pickup.

Certain agricultural subsidies, in particular, have "the most damaging impact on nature of all types of subsidies," Pickup added.

The experts also agreed that it is better to encourage long-term investment as this is the only way to ensure lasting benefits for nature as replanting a forest and seeing biodiversity return cannot be done in a matter of months.

Reaching local communities

But "how can we ensure that these financial flows reach these communities and the people on the ground?" Mayerhofer asked at the event.

COP16 host Colombia has decided to make indigenous communities - the first to be affected by biodiversity loss due to their heavy dependence on flora and fauna for survival - a key focus of the event.

For Pickup, one of the key questions in Cali will be how to ensure that indigenous groups are at the forefront of decision-making and how to ensure that funding reaches them.

This year's international biodiversity event should be "a people's COP", said Noor Yafai of environmental NGO The Nature Conservancy, adding that funding decisions must reflect "the vital role that indigenous peoples and local communities play in nature conservation."

Three COPs will be held at the end of the year.

These include the UN Climate Conference (COP29), in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 11 to 22 November, the aforementioned UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 16) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Daniel Eck]