In a sign of the difficulty of reaching an agreement at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity (COP15), delegates from developing countries left a negotiating session last night which focused on the financing necessary to implement the agreement. which must be signed in Montreal in the coming days.
“There are always issues to be resolved. But the issue which seems to have precipitated the exit of the delegates is that of the creation of a new fund on biodiversity ”, argued Wednesday morning the spokesperson for the Convention on Biological Diversity, David Ainsworth.
He specified that a meeting will be organized on Wednesday by the Chinese presidency of COP15 to try to bring the delegates back to the negotiating table on this crucial issue in an attempt to reach a global agreement on the protection of biodiversity by December 19.
The issue of funding is indeed at the heart of the issues that remain to be resolved over the coming days, said Wednesday Basile Van Havre, co-chair of the working group on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The current impasse will also have to be resolved by the ministers responsible for fine-tuning the negotiating text, between December 15 and 17, he specified.
It must be said that the implementation of 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.
Brazil reiterated on Saturday, on behalf of the African continent and 14 other countries, including India and Indonesia, its demand for “financial subsidies of at least $100 billion a year, or 1% of global GDP up to ‘in 2030’. But this expected increase in funding is considered unrealistic by rich countries, for whom development aid devoted to biodiversity represented 10 billion dollars per year in 2020.
To accommodate these sums, the South also wants to see the creation of a new global fund for biodiversity. But the idea of an umpteenth fund does not appeal to rich countries, which want to favor a reform of existing financial flows.
“Creating a new fund could take years,” Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault warned on Tuesday, citing the seven years spent setting up the current Global Environment Fund.
Another issue that remains to be resolved: the target of protecting 30% of land and sea natural environments by 2030. According to Basile Van Havre, the file will be handed over to the ministers, since for the moment, the targets and deadlines are still not the subject of the necessary consensus to be included in the final text.
More details to come.