UN’s Cop16 agrees deal to help finance biodiversity protection

The UN’s Cop16 biodiversity conference in Rome has agreed to a landmark deal to mobilise billions of dollars to fund nature protection.

The 196 countries which support the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) said they had agreed ways to raise at least US$200bn a year by 2030 after intense negotiations. The US has not signed the convention.

“The results of this meeting show that multilateralism works and is the vehicle to build the partnerships needed to protect biodiversity,” said CBD executive secretary Astrid Schomaker. “The world will have given itself the means to close the biodiversity finance gap.”

The agreement is aimed at funding the historic agreement struck by the CBD signatories in 2022 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 under the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework.

An attempt to reach a finance agreement last year in Cali, Colombia failed.

Environmental group WWF welcomed what it called a “hard-fought” resolution in Rome.

“State parties have taken a step in the right direction. We commend them for reaching these multilateral gains in a challenging context of global politics. There is consensus on a way forward to midwife the financial arrangements we need to arrest biodiversity loss and restore nature,” said Efraim Gomez, global policy director at WWF International.

However, Gomez noted that developed nations are not on track to honour their commitment to raise $20bn by 2025 for developing nations.

“Investing in nature is existential, it is a global life insurance. Through it, we can mitigate the climate crisis, make ecosystems and communities more resilient, stabilize food prices and lock away carbons that fuel extreme weather patterns and displace people. We must seize the opportunity to invest in nature,” he said.

According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of the world’s total GDP is at least moderately dependent on nature. A quarter of animal and plant species are now threatened, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Central banks are starting to highlight risks from nature to financial institutions. WWF says deforestation and land conversion are major drivers of nature loss and climate change and present financial risks that central bankers should be aware of.

A report by international NGOs says banks play a major role in biodiversity loss: since 2015, they have provided over $395bn in credit to industries such as beef, palm oil, pulp and paper, rubber, soya and timber in regions vulnerable to deforestation.

Cop16 said the conference adopted a strategy to mobilise funds from governments, private and philanthropic sources, multilateral development banks, blended finance and other novel approaches.

Ahead of the meeting, the European Commission said a deal in Rome would be a significant step forward given the “increasingly challenging geopolitical landscape that also affects biodiversity policies and financing”.

The Commission said the EU and its member states are the main providers of international biodiversity funding, allocating €7bn for the 2021-2027 period. The bloc’s budget allocates 10% for biodiversity-related activities in the EU from 2026 onwards.

Laura Caicedo, campaigns coordinator for Greenpeace Colombia, welcomed the deal, but said substantive financial commitments were needed.

“It is now crucial that global north countries honour their commitments and translate today’s decisions into real funding to protect biodiversity,” she said. “The current crisis demands action, not promises. The effective mobilisation of these resources is essential to tackle environmental challenges with real solutions.”