Press release:
Finance mobilisation at the crux of COP16
Progress is slow as COP16 enters its second and final week of negotiations. Creating robust and alternative finance streams is key for a successful outcome.
BIODIVERSITY: Scarlet ibises (Eudocimus ruber) in the Amazon rainforest. Photo: Araquem Alcantara
By Regnskogfondet i Cali, Colombia.
Cali, Colombia, 27.10.2024
This week, ministers from all over the world arrive in Cali, Colombia, for the high-level part of the Conference of the Parties on the Convention on Biodiversity. The aim is to ensure the world is on track to achieving the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon in Montreal in 2022.
Frustrating lack of ambition
Taking stock after the past week of negotiations, the current national plans, NBSAPs, contain very few new or ambitious targets, neither for protecting biodiversity nor for providing financial support to countries in doing so.
"It is frustrating to see how governments have failed to deliver on the hope and enthusiasm from Montreal", says Anders Haug Larsen, Director of International Advocacy at Rainforest Foundation Norway.
Colombia, the COP16 host nation, is a biodiversity-rich rainforest country. It has delivered a national biodiversity plan that expands the size of land under protection and seeks to develop 500,000 new green jobs by 2030.
"We need other countries to follow Colombia’s lead on increasing the ambition for protecting biodiversity. This is especially relevant for tropical rainforest countries, which host more than half of all life on land", says Haug Larsen.
Anders Haug Larsen, Director of International Advocacy at Rainforest Foundation Norway. Photo: RFN
Finance mobilisation is key
The global lack of biodiversity funding is making the COP16 negotiations particularly difficult. To solve this, Colombia proposes to mobilize new types of support for biodiversity protection outside of ordinary development aid, for example, through debt-to-nature swaps and private sector investments in biodiversity-friendly solutions.
The COP16 discussion on securing benefits from DNA information from wild organisms to nature protection is another such way of securing financial support.
"COP16 hinges on getting a credible solution to mobilize financial resources for biodiversity protection. An agreement on benefits from DNA information systems at COP16 could be a vital breakthrough. A credible plan to mobilize new resources by next year’s COP30 in Brazil is another. This outcome will create the necessary momentum for tropical rainforest countries to increase their biodiversity protection," says Haug Larsen, following the negotiations closely from Cali.
Indigenous and local community rights must be secured to protect biodiversity
The first week of COP16 has also been marked by the broad presence of Indigenous peoples and local communities calling for the meeting to secure their rights in continuing to protect biodiversity.
"The science is clear. Biodiversity is richer in areas managed by Indigenous communities with rights to their land. Therefore, we must secure indigenous peoples and local community rights to effectively protect areas of high biodiversity, such as tropical rainforests. COP16 is likely to point in the right direction to achieve this, but also here success lies in how countries decide to follow up COP16 outcomes," says Anders Haug Larsen, Director of International Advocacy at Rainforest Foundation Norway.
For further information, please contact:
Kristin Rødland Buick
Senior Adviser, International Communications
+(47) 456 56 277
kristin@rainforest.no