A total of 116 countries present at the UN conference on biodiversity (COP15) are calling for the protection of 30% of natural land and sea environments by 2030. States, including Canada, recognize that this ambitious objective will require substantial financial resources, but there is still no agreement on this crucial issue, three days from the end of the conference.
Countries in favor of including the 30% target in the global framework which is still under negotiation invited other countries on Friday to join this initiative in favor of “high ambition for nature and people”. , according to the message conveyed by the Canadian Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault.
The latter at the same time recognized that achieving this objective, considered essential to curb the global decline of biodiversity, will require financial “resources”. Announcements totaling a few billion were also made on Thursday by certain developed countries, including Germany and France.
Implementing a biodiversity protection framework will require tens of billions of dollars in funding over the next few years. Essentially, it will be financing that will have to be provided by developed countries to developing countries to allow them to meet the objectives of the agreement.
This funding will be needed to protect natural land and sea environments, transform agricultural practices, reduce the use of pesticides and pollution, and also restore ecosystems degraded by human activity.
$100 billion
In the context of the negotiations in Montreal, Brazil, on behalf of the African continent and 14 other countries, including India and Indonesia, is largely piloting the demand from developing countries for “financial subsidies of at least $100 billion per year, or 1% of global GDP until 2030”.
To receive these sums, Brazil and its allies in this dossier are also calling for the creation of a new global fund dedicated specifically to the implementation of the future global agreement on biodiversity. But this expected increase in financing, and the creation of a new fund, are deemed unrealistic by some rich countries.
The current impasse over funding will have to be resolved by the ministers responsible for fine-tuning the negotiating text by Saturday. In any case, several observers expect the negotiations to continue beyond December 19, when COP15 should in theory end.
According to the most recent version of the text currently under negotiation, issues such as the target for the protection of 30% of natural land and sea environments, but also the objectives for restoring ecosystems degraded by human activity, have still not been resolved. The same goes for the need to curb the extinction of species attributable to human activity. All the quantified targets and all the possible deadlines remain to be negotiated.
More details to come.