More than 140 countries meeting in Rome have adopted a strategy to mobilise hundreds of billions of euros a year to help reverse dramatic losses in biodiversity across the planet.
Despite the breakthrough, they failed to decide on establishing a new global nature fund – a core demand of developing countries.
The resumed UN biodiversity conference, known as Cop16, deferred a decision on the fund – intended to help accelerate financing of projects – until 2028. The talks followed a previous inconclusive summit in Cali, Colombia, last year.
Despite the outcome achieved early on Friday after marathon negotiations overnight, many ministerial delegates warned the task of halting global nature loss by 2030 was slipping out of reach. This commitment was made at a historic Cop15 in Montreal in 2022.
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Cop16 president Susana Muhamad wept as she brought down the gavel on the agreement outlining a roadmap for nature finance. The UN talks were seen as a test for international co-operation in the face of geopolitical tensions.
Despite some wins, difficult issues, including addressing nature-destroying subsidies and cutting pollution, were not addressed.
This is against a background where a million of the world’s species are threatened with extinction, while unsustainable farming and consumption destroy forests, deplete soils and spread plastic pollution to even the most remote areas of the planet.
Ms Muhamad called it a “historic day”, adding: “We achieved the adoption of the first global plan to finance the conservation of life on Earth.”
“Our efforts show multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change.
Jean-Luc Crucke, Belgium’s climate and ecological transition minister, described the negotiations as the “least bad” process. If the world really wanted to save nature, he said, “there is no other solution than this one”.
The meeting comes as countries face challenges likely to make addressing nature loss more difficult. These range from trade disputes and debt worries to the slashing of overseas aid – particularly by the Trump administration. Washington, which has not signed up to the UN’s convention on biological diversity, did not send representatives to the meeting.
Others at the summit expressed frustration at the agreement’s lack of ambition when it comes to the nature crisis. Bolivia negotiator Juan Carlos Alurralde Tejada raised concerns about the text “diluting” commitments to biodiversity and opening the path to an “indefinite discussion” on who will pay for conservation and how to distribute the money.
“Biodiversity cannot wait for a bureaucratic process that lasts forever, while the environmental crisis continues to get worse,” he added. “Forests are burning, rivers are in agony and animals are disappearing.”
Global policy director at World Wildlife Fund International Efraim Gomez commended countries for reaching these multilateral gains in a challenging context of global politics. “There is consensus on a way forward to ‘midwife’ the financial arrangements we need to arrest biodiversity loss and restore nature,” he added.
“However, this necessary step is not sufficient. Now, the hard work starts. It remains a point of concern that developed nations are not on track to honouring their commitment of raising $20 billion by 2025 for developing nations,” he added.
“Investing in nature is existential, it is a global life insurance. Through it, we can mitigate the climate crisis, make ecosystems and communities more resilient, stabilise food prices and lock away carbons that fuel extreme weather patterns and displace people,” said Mr Gomez.
The failure to finalise an agreement in Cali was the first in a series of disappointing outcomes at environmental summits last year. A climate finance deal at Cop29 in Azerbaijan in November was criticised by developing countries as woefully insufficient, while separate negotiations about desertification and plastic pollution stalled in December. – Additional reporting: Guardian
