The UN Biodiversity Conference has entered its final week with initial decisions adopted and hundreds of millions of dollars pledged, as governments tackle tough negotiations on biodiversity finance and economic incentives driving nature loss.
The conference, comprising COP 17, 12th Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 6th Meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, is due to close Friday. This week, it is convening approximately 1,500 people at the High-Level Segment on 27-28 October, including 140 ministers and deputy ministers of finance and environment, to address barriers to implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022.
Negotiators made progress on several fronts during the opening week, adopting four COP 17 decisions on invasive alien species, gender, education and knowledge management; eight substantive decisions advancing the Cartagena Protocol, including on monitoring and reporting, compliance and strengthening national processes for its effective implementation; and two decisions advancing the Nagoya Protocol on monitoring and reporting and compliance.
Among other decisions this week, the Global Review will consider evidence provided in the State of Biodiversity Action report, launched by UN Secretary-General António Guterres ahead of COP 17, which found widespread national commitment but substantial gaps in ambition and delivery.
‘COP 17 is enabling a total mobilisation of more than $1.8 billion from all sources – governments, philanthropic organisations and investors – in support of strong biodiversity action,’ said COP 17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan. ‘The first week has shown that cooperation can deliver progress. The second week must demonstrate that political commitment can deliver action.’
Delivering those results will require governments to place biodiversity at the heart of economic and financial decision-making, a challenge brought into sharper focus by the participation of finance ministers at COP 17.
‘Nature is not a luxury we protect when economies can afford it. Nature is what makes economies possible. The arrival of finance ministers at COP 17 sends an important signal,’ said Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. ‘Biodiversity loss is not simply an environmental problem. It is an economic problem, and the solutions must reach into the heart of economic decision-making.’
The scale of the challenge is reflected in the financial incentives that continue to drive biodiversity loss, often undermining investments in its protection and restoration.
‘Financing the destruction of nature with 30 dollars against every dollar spent restoring it is like paying 30 people to tear down your house for every one hired to rebuild it,’ said Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Ms Schomaker outlined three priorities for turning commitments into results: accountability, alignment and acceleration. Accountability means using national reports, scientific evidence and the first global review to identify shortcomings and guide stronger action. Alignment means ensuring that public budgets, private investment, economic policies and financial incentives support rather than undermine global biodiversity objectives. Acceleration means moving faster to implement the Framework’s 23 targets by 2030.
‘The global review showed us where progress is being made and where we are falling behind,’ she said. ‘Yerevan focuses all Parties on closing those gaps.’
Closing those gaps, however, will require governments to overcome significant differences in the negotiations. Major questions remain over who should contribute to international biodiversity finance, how much funding should be mobilised and through which mechanisms. Parties also remain divided over language on reducing or phasing out harmful incentives, including agricultural subsidies.
Other unresolved issues include which commercial users of digital sequence information should contribute to the Cali Fund; arrangements for the new permanent body on Indigenous Peoples and local communities under Article 8(j); and how biodiversity action should be aligned with climate commitments and other international obligations.