The world’s largest nature conservation conference, COP16, is entering its final day in Colombia with negotiators still at odds over how to fund plans to “halt and reverse” species loss.
Amid speculation that the talks may extend into an extra day, summit president Susana Muhamad described Friday’s scheduled closing session as “heart-stopping” due to the number of unresolved issues.
“It’s a very complex negotiation, with many interests, many parties… and that means everyone has to cede something,” Muhamad, who is also Colombia’s environment minister, told reporters on Thursday.
With approximately 23,000 registered delegates, the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began in Cali on October 21, is the largest meeting of its kind. The event follows the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon in Canada two years ago, which mandates that $200 billion per year be allocated for biodiversity by 2030.
This includes $20 billion annually from wealthy nations to poorer ones to meet 23 UN targets aimed at “halting and reversing” nature destruction by 2030 and placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under protection.
COP16’s primary task is to assess and accelerate progress towards these targets. However, negotiations on funding mechanisms have stalled, according to observers and delegates, even as new research this week revealed that more than a quarter of assessed plants and animals are at risk of extinction
