COP16 hands power to Indigenous people but fails to bridge nature finance gap

UN biodiversity summit produces mixed results, with gains for Indigenous people and disagreement on how to raise and manage funding for nature protection

After a marathon last night of negotiations in Cali, Colombia, COP16 closed abruptly on Saturday morning – when countries realised that with the final session of the biodiversity summit stretching to 11 hours, smaller country delegations had left and there were no longer enough governments in the room to formally approve further decisions.

Some progress had been made, however, as the talks established a new “Cali Fund” to channel voluntary contributions from the private sector to compensate countries for the commercial use of genetic material from plants and animals. They also created a new permanent body for Indigenous people, granting them formal power to influence decisions made under the UN biodiversity convention.

But no common ground was found on the most pressing issue facing governments: how to close the gap in biodiversity finance. As time ran out, countries also failed to approve a technical set of indicators – known as the “monitoring framework” – to assess progress on national targets and plans to protect nature.

The meeting was suspended, and the UN biodiversity secretariat said governments would need to reconvene before the next COP in two years, due to be held in Armenia, to resolve pending issues.

Bittersweet reactions

Observers of the talks said the lack of agreement on future funding for nature conservation around the world could hold back government efforts to present updated national biodiversity plans – which are a critical tool for meeting a global goal to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and water ecosystems by 2030 and a cornerstone of an international nature pact agreed two years ago in Montreal.

“Governments in Cali put forward plans to protect nature but were unable to mobilise the money to actually do it,” said An Lambrechts, head of delegation for Greenpeace at COP16. “Biodiversity finance remains stalled.”

Kirsten Schuijt, director general of WWF International, said the outcome “jeopardises” the implementation of the Montreal conservation goals, warning “we’re now veering dangerously off track”.

Colombia’s environment minister and COP16 president, Susana Muhamad, pointed to the positive aspects of the summit her country hosted – for which more than 23,000 delegates registered – saying it had managed to “raise the political profile of biodiversity”.

The lack of agreement on finance and a monitoring framework, “leaves some challenges for the [biodiversity] convention that will have to be resolved”, she added. “Discussions there were always very polarised and remained that way.”

Finance gap

Unlocking more and better finance was a key challenge for the two-week COP16 talks – but very little fresh cash was forthcoming and the closing plenary failed to reach agreement on whether to set up a new fund to channel the money before losing quorum, leaving discussions up in the air.

As part of the Kunming-Montreal pact, adopted in 2022, developed countries agreed to provide $20 billion a year by 2025 for nature conservation and $30 billion per year by 2030.

Up to now, funding for biodiversity has been insufficient, with the total amount from all sources standing at about $15.4 billion in 2022, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Within that, a fund for rich-government contributions has secured only around $400 million, including $163 million in new pledges from eight countries at COP16 – which observers called “a drop in the ocean”.

In addition, governments at COP16 clashed over what to do with this biodiversity fund, which was created at COP15 in Montreal. Some countries pushed for a new fund to replace the current one that sits with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), arguing that the GEF is not efficient at channelling funds to biodiversity hotspots nor at giving access to Indigenous people and local communities who safeguard nature on the ground. Developed countries countered that doing this would waste time and divide efforts.

The GEF’s CEO, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, told Climate Home News during COP16 that creating a new fund could lead to a “fragmentation” of biodiversity funding. “Our main limitation is financial. If we had more resources we would do more,” Rodriguez said. In the end, no decision was made and talks will be taken up again at negotiations between COPs.

To that end, Colombia proposed a text that would start “an inter-sessional process” to come up with a “comprehensive financial solution” by COP17 in 2026. Moments ahead of the final vote on this, a new proposal was released to set up another global fund by 2030.

But governments remained fixed in their opposing views: the African group of countries, Bolivia and Brazil demanded a new fund, while Canada, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand and the EU opposed it, instead offering an assessment of the current set-up by COP18.

“A new fund does not mean new funding. It’s very difficult to explain to our citizens the multitude of funds and administrative burden associated with it. Our citizens are the taxpayers – the source for us to finance official development aid,” said the European Union’s negotiator.

Brazil’s lead negotiator pushed back, saying it seemed that developed countries did not want to help and her delegation was not prepared to discuss anything else until a solution was found.

In the end, time ran out and the meeting was closed before an agreement was reached, raising concern among observers.

National biodiversity plans

In the lead-up to the Cali summit, only a handful of countries had met a deadline to submit up-to-date biodiversity plans, although more had set national targets for nature protection without showing how they would meet them.

At COP16, Colombia opened the count by announcing its new National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) on the first day – which was then followed by other mega-diverse countries including India, Peru and Thailand.

By the end of the conference, 119 countries had announced national targets, while 44 had published NBSAPs – comprehensive plans that require broad consultation – leaving around 150 to come.

Bernadette Fischler Hooper, head of international advocacy at WWF UK, told journalists on the summit’s last day that the new plans and targets were a positive sign, but she stressed the need for funding to implement them.

Very few African countries have so far put together their NBSAPs, she said, adding “we’ve heard (at COP16) time and time again that the reason for that is lack of resources”.

The COP16 text “urges” countries to submit new NBSAPs “as soon as possible”, but stopped short of setting a deadline as some had wanted.

Two major biodiverse countries have yet to submit either NBSAPs or national targets: Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are home to massive carbon sinks in the Amazon and Congo Basin. Brazil promised at COP16 to submit its biodiversity plan this year.

Indigenous victory

Among the decisions governments adopted, COP16 created a permanent body for Indigenous people, which will grant them unprecedented participation in decision-making and greater prominence within the UN biodiversity convention.

After strong opposition from Russia and Indonesia, countries approved the new body tasked with addressing challenges for Indigenous people, including barriers to accessing funding and threats to environmental defenders.

“This is a watershed moment in the history of multilateral environmental agreements,” Jennifer Corpuz, a lead negotiator for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, said in a statement.

The decision also recognises the contributions of Afro-descendent communities to biodiversity protection, which was a priority for COP host Colombia, alongside Brazil.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a Chadian indigenous activist and chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told Climate Home during COP16 that access to nature funding is still a major hurdle for Indigenous communities, which also struggle to secure land tenure.

In another victory for Indigenous people, countries also agreed to establish the “Cali Fund” which will be filled by voluntary contributions from companies that use genetic material derived from living organisms in their products. A key aspect of that decision was that “at least half” of the funding will go directly to Indigenous people.

The text says companies above a certain size in the cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food supplements and other sectors should contribute 1% of their profits or 0.1% of their revenue to the fund.

Fossil fuels left out

Also among the more than 30 decisions discussed at COP16, negotiators adopted a key text on the linkages between climate change and biodiversity – but after some back and forth, it omitted all mention of the fossil fuels that are heating the planet and damaging its ecosystems.

Colombia initially proposed including reference to the global commitment to “transition away” from fossil fuels in energy systems that was agreed at last year’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai. However, this was removed in closed-door negotiations by the talks’ co-chairs Sweden and China, observers told Climate Home.

On Thursday, Fiji made a new attempt to put the fossil fuel language back in the text but this failed, partly due to time constraints.

Andrés Gómez, coordinator for Latin America at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative, said the omission was a “missed opportunity” to get the issue on the table at the UN biodiversity talks. He said attention should turn now to the COP29 climate summit in Baku this month, which offers another chance to rally support for a phase-out of fossil fuels.

Commentators urged political leaders to build on the momentum from COP16 to raise nature to the top of their priority list and align their work on biodiversity and climate change.

“All countries should start mainstreaming their biodiversity and climate goals into sectoral policies, including for agriculture, land use, infrastructure and energy,” said Crystal Davis, global director for food, land and water at the World Resources Institute, a US-based think-tank.

“We urge countries to deliver strong finance outcomes at the upcoming G20 and COP29 meetings, where they should continue bridging nature and climate action for people and planet alike,” she added in a statement.

Cover photo: COP16 participants celebrate the establishment of the Subsidiary Body for Indigenous Peoples, in Cali, Colombia, on November 2, 2024. (Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)