What happened at the COP16 biodiversity conference

Representatives of nearly 200 governments have just ended two weeks of negotiations in Cali, Colombia at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Much of the focus was on progress — or lack thereof — in implementing and financing the Global Biodiversity Framework, a strategy for halting and reversing nature loss by 2030.

Decisions adopted

Here are some of the key decisions that the Parties to the CBD adopted:

The Cali Fund: Parties agreed to establish the Cali Fund for the fair and equitable benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources. This will take some of the money that companies make by selling products developed using digital genetic information — such as medicines and cosmetics — and share it with countries and communities from which the genetic information was originally sourced. It could raise up to US$1 billion each year. Parties to the CBD agreed that “all users of digital sequence information… should” pay into the fund, and that half of the money should support the self-identified needs of indigenous people and local communities — see Decision text.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities: In a victory for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the COP agreed to elevate the temporary working group that has focused on their concerns into a permanent body that reports to the COP — see Decision text.

Health: The COP adopted a Global Action Plan for Biodiversity and Health, a set of voluntary actions aimed at addressing — in a joined-up manner — interconnected threats to human health, ecosystem health and animal health — see Decision text.

Climate change: The COP decision urges parties to align their action on climate change and biodiversity — see Decision text.

Progress: By the end of the COP, only 44 of the CBD’s 196 parties had submitted an updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan that aligns with the Global Biodiversity Framework — the COP adopted a decision that urged the remainder to do this “as soon as possible”— see Decision text.

Global review: Parties agreed to how they will report on their progress in implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework, and how their reports will feed into a global review of progress that will take place at COP17 in 2026 — see Decision text.

Future COPs: In a secret ballot, Parties to the CBD voted for Yerevan, Armenia to host COP17 in 2026. The COP invited Parties in Latin America and the Caribbean to express interest in hosting COP18 in 2028 — see Decision text.

Decisions not adopted

The COP ended abruptly at around 8.30am on 2 November, when it became clear that there were no longer enough Parties represented, because so many delegates had to leave to catch flights and did not have budgets for delaying their travel.

This meant that the COP:

• failed to adopt one its priority decisions — a strategy for raising US$200 billion a year by 2030 to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework.

• could not reach consensus on a proposal to set up a new global fund under authority of the COP and make it operational by 2030.

• ran out of time to approve the CBD’s budget for the next two years.

So it was messy end to the negotiations. As the next COP does not take place until, 2026, there will need to be some alternative gathering early in 2025 to finish the work.

I will leave you with some words from Jiwoh Abdulai, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change from Sierra Leone.

“If you saw your neighbor's house was on fire, you would not wait until it reached yours to take action. So why is the international community acting with such a lack of urgency when it comes to the global fire we currently face in nature loss? 

Two years ago, we made a commitment to do better and be better. That included wealthier nations promising to deliver at least US$20 billion a year in nature finance to the Global South by 2025 to help protect the globally important ecosystems we are trying to protect for all our benefit. With that deadline just weeks away, we are still US$4.6 billion short. 

This COP has neither delivered that additional funding nor given us confidence that governments will work together to deliver it in a transparent and urgent manner. Biodiversity is a public good; it is our greatest defense against climate change, our source of food, medicine, water, income, and identity.

Governments have shown time and time again that they can materialize the funds needed when they want - be that for pandemics or wars - why then can they not materialize it to fight the greatest existential threat we face?”