UN biodiversity summit opens with call for ‘significant’ funding

The world’s largest conference on nature protection opens Monday in Colombia with the head of the United Nations calling on countries to “turn words into action” and enrich a fund aimed at combating biodiversity loss.

On the eve of the official start of the conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “significant investments” in the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) established last year, as well as to “commitments to mobilize other sources of public and private financing”. “

“Those who benefit from nature must contribute to its protection and restoration,” Guterres said in a video broadcast to delegates gathered in the western city of Cali, where authorities were on high alert after threats from a guerrilla group.

The GBFF was created last year to help countries meet the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted in Canada in 2022, with 23 targets aimed at “halting and reversing” the loss of biodiversity. nature by 2030.

So far, countries have committed about $250 million to the fund, according to monitoring agencies.

The fund is part of a broader agreement reached in Montreal two years ago for countries to mobilize at least $200 billion a year by 2030 for biodiversity, including $20 billion a year by 2025 from rich countries to help developing countries.

Guterres stressed that the destruction of nature increases conflict, hunger and disease, fuels poverty and negatively impacts economic growth.

“A collapse of natural services, such as pollination and clean water, would cost the global economy billions of dollars a year, with the poorest hit hardest,” he said.

“Peace with nature”

Around 12,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, including 140 ministers and a dozen heads of state, are expected at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is taking place until November 1st.

With the theme “Peace with Nature”, it has the urgent task of proposing monitoring and financing mechanisms to ensure that the 23 UN goals can be achieved.

But Colombian rebel group EMC, a branch of the FARC guerrilla army disbanded in 2017, cast a shadow over the event by calling on foreign delegations to stay away and warning that the conference “will fail.”

The threat came after EMC fighters were targeted during a military raid in the southwestern Cauca region, where the group is accused of engaging in drug trafficking and exploitation illegal mining.

Cali is the closest major city to territory controlled by the EMC, which is engaged in difficult peace negotiations with the government.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro also spoke at Sunday’s ceremony, two days after saying he was “nervous” about security.

Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder, however, insisted that authorities had the situation under control.

“We have been working since February to save the city of Cali,” he said. “We have more than 10,000 police officers, we also have detachments of the Colombian Armed Forces guarding the entire perimeter of the city.”

“Nature is not a resource”

Delegates have their work cut out for them, with just five years remaining to reach the goal of placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under protection by 2030.

Jane Goodall, Britain’s world-renowned primate expert, warned before the summit that there was little time left to reverse the downward trend.

“The time for words and false promises is over if we want to save the planet,” Goodall told AFP this week.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains a red list of threatened animals and plants, more than a quarter of the species assessed, or around a million in total, are threatened with extinction.

Taking the presidency of the COP, which is held every two years, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told delegates that the goal of “peace with nature” involves a conceptual shift in values.

“Nature is not a resource. Nature is the fiber of life that makes our own existence possible,” she said.

Host country Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world and Petro, its first left-wing president in modern history, has made environmental protection a priority.

But the country has struggled to emerge from six decades of armed conflict involving left-wing guerrillas like the EMC, right-wing paramilitaries, drug gangs and the state.

© 2024 AFP