At COP16, countries clash over the future of the global nature protection fund

Two years ago, at the UN COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal, 196 countries agreed to create a fund for projects to conserve and restore nature – but it has struggled to attract contributions important. Today, at COP16 in Cali, government negotiators are clashing over what to do with it.

A group of developing countries – concerned about their access to the existing fund – is pushing a proposal to create a new biodiversity fund under the COP. It is planned to replace the one created in Montreal, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and to offer developing countries rich in biodiversity greater influence over how it is managed .

“Biodiversity funding should be directed where the biodiversity is found. The voice of countries that bear a heavier burden should count more than in the GEF governance system,” Brazilian negotiator André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said on Monday during the opening session of COP16.

Experts told Climate Home News that the future of the fund could become the main topic of debate at the Colombian summit, adding that disagreements over the developing countries’ proposal were starting to hamper progress in other financial negotiations.

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Old divisions reappear

In 2022, countries agreed to host the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) within the GEF – a multilateral agency co-founded by the World Bank and other UN agencies – until 2030, with the possibility of extending the agreement after this year. .

Some developing countries have strongly opposed the GEF as host of the fund, fearing they would not have enough influence over it, with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) opposing the entire new pact World Wildlife Fund agreed in Montreal due to the dispute over the fund.

Decisions on how to use the fund’s money are made by a board made up of 16 members from developing countries, 14 from developed countries and two from countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The fund is supposed to provide “improved access to indigenous peoples and local communities, according to their own priorities”. But, in a recent briefing shared with Climate Home, Survival International says the confusion between indigenous peoples and local communities is “very problematic” – and says the GEF does not have adequate safeguards to ensure indigenous peoples’ consent.

Survival International, a campaign group for the rights of tribal people, also says the fund’s portfolio “is so far dominated by United Nations agencies and a handful of primarily US-based conservation organizations” and reinforces “old and failing models of top-down management and colonial conservation, particularly through the creation of national parks”.

This week, efforts to withdraw management of the GEF fund resurfaced at COP16.

Brazil supports a proposal to create a new fund designed “in an inclusive and innovative way, learning from the experience of current instruments,” Corrêa do Lago said during the opening plenary session. Other countries – from India and Bangladesh to South Africa and China – have also called for a more equitable and transparent approach to financing biodiversity, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

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As negotiations intensified during the first week of the conference in Colombia, divisions began to surface. Canada, for example, rejected the idea of ​​a new fund during a finance session on Tuesday.

“The proposal to create a new donor-based fund or financial mechanism would serve to further fragment the biodiversity financial landscape and result in increased administrative costs, without mobilizing new donor funding,” reads the Canadian statement. .

A source in the negotiating rooms told Climate Home News that the DRC had said it would not pursue any discussions on financing until the issue of the financing mechanism was resolved.

Chair of Working Group 1, Charlotta Sörqvist from Sweden, during discussions on financing biodiversity at COP16. (Photo: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)

“Toxic” problem

According to Thomas Pickford, head of UK policy and partnerships at The Nature Conservancy, the future of the UN biodiversity fund has “real potential to be a barrier to progress”.

“It’s kind of become a toxic problem that we’re trying to solve,” he told Climate Home News. “There is obviously a big disagreement between donor countries and recipient countries. »

WWF global advocacy manager Bernadette Fischler Hooper said rich countries could build trust by sending strong signals about their financial commitments.

Until now, funds for the GBFF coffers have been scarce. Developed countries have pledged around $243 million, of which nearly $194 million has been received by the fund, with COP15 host Canada – which made the largest commitment – ​​having yet to pay the full amount. Rising.

Pledges to the GBFF, from just a handful of countries, represent only a fraction of the COP15 target for donor governments to provide $20 billion a year for biodiversity protection. by 2025, and $30 billion by 2030.

Broader development funding from donors for nature protection and restoration efforts increased from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $15.4 billion in 2022, according to the Organization for Cooperation and Development economic – but much of that money came in the form of loans.

Is reform necessary?

So far, the GBFF has approved 22 projects, primarily for implementation in the Global South, but almost all run by large accredited organizations, including multilateral development banks, UN agencies and groups. Northern Greens such as WWF and Conservation International.

At COP16, some developing countries said the number of projects was low, partly because of difficulties accessing money. In a statement during the financial negotiations, Uruguay noted that of 66 candidate projects for the second round of GBFF grants, only 18 were approved.

WWF’s Fischler Hooper called for “flexibility and openness on the part of countries to discuss all available options and break the current impasse in the negotiations” on the biodiversity finance mechanism.

Pickford of The Nature Conservancy said the main options on the table are: create a new fund in Cali, delay the decision until COP17 in two years, conduct more evaluations to determine whether a new fund is necessary or ratify the current fund as the final financial instrument.

He stressed that the GBFF so far does not have “sufficient funding” and called for reform in the way the GEF manages it.

“We want simplified access to developing countries. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is still too difficult to access financing,” he added.

(Reporting by Sebastian Rodriguez; Editing by Megan Rowling and Joe Lo)