Cropped 30 October 2024: The state of play at COP16

§ Key developments

Millions versus billions

FINANCE FIGHT: Resource mobilisation continues to be one of the most divisive negotiation topics at COP16, which provides the first litmus test for how developed countries have progressed on their finance commitments since Montreal. Pledges made so far have been far short of closing the $700bn-a-year finance gap for biodiversity. In a non-paper compiling countries’ views on a new resource mobilisation strategy for 2025-30, developing countries revived their call for a new financial mechanism under the COP, which is opposed by developed countries. The new fund “could become the biggest issue for debate” at the talks, Climate Home News reported. COP16 president Colombia’s attempt to include references to the global debt crisis have also faced marked opposition. The one point of consensus, however, is to mobilise funds for nature from “all sources”.

ALL SOURCES GO?: Attempts to thaw the finance deadlock began right from the start of COP, chiefly through private and hybrid finance initiatives. The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits launched its “high-integrity” principles for biodiversity markets, which were called “extremely problematic” by the Green Finance Observatory, a sustainable finance thinktank. The Brazil-led Tropical Forests Finance Facility (TFFF) took centre stage on “finance day” at COP16. The fund aims to raise $125bn for six rainforest nations through re-investing long-term loans from developed countries. Seven countries, including New Zealand, France and Austria, as well as Quebec, pledged $163m in total to the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund. “We are talking about millions that have been pledged…But what we are expecting are billions,” Irène Wabiwa Betoko from Greenpeace told Reuters. Other observers told Carbon Brief that “at least this $163m is grant money and not loans”.

OCEAN ACTION: On 23 October, Panama ratified the “High Seas Treaty”, bringing the total number of ratifications to 14 out of the 60 that are required for the treaty to enter into force, according to the High Seas Alliance. At a press conference on Monday, a host of philanthropies announced a joint pledge of $51.7m to “accelerate the creation” of high-seas marine protected areas, which are critical for meeting the COP15 “30 by 30” target. Coral reefs are also garnering attention, with an “emergency special session” on coral reefs added to Wednesday’s schedule in response to the recent announcement that the current mass bleaching event is the largest ever. On Tuesday, ambassador Peter Thomson, UN special envoy for the ocean, warned that “we’re approaching the collapse of an entire ecosystem” and implored governments and philanthropies to open their wallets for coral reef protection.

Future plans

POLITICAL WILL: Colombian president Gustavo Petro criticised the “lack of action” on climate change and biodiversity loss around the world in a speech during COP16’s high-level segment. Petro joined five other heads of state, more than 100 ministers and other key figures at the event over 29-30 October. Petro noted that both COP16 and the COP30 climate talks, due to be held next year in Belém, Brazil, must be “decisive” and “turning points where we won’t continue doing the same thing”. UN secretary general António Guterres said in his speech that “nature is life”, but there is a “war against it”. He added: “Biodiversity is humanity’s ally. We should move from destroying it to preserving it.” 

BIODIVERSITY PLEDGES: As negotiations inch towards consensus in Cali, there has been little progress on country-level biodiversity pledges, known as “national biodiversity strategies and action plans” (NBSAPs). On Tuesday, Germany released its NBSAP – leaving the UK as the only G7 nation still working to produce a new pledge. (The US is not a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity and so does not produce NBSAPs.) It means that 36 countries have now submitted NBSAPs, with 161 yet to do so. Countries that were unable to meet the deadline to submit NBSAPs ahead of COP16 were requested to instead submit national targets. These submissions – which have currently been submitted by 115 parties – list biodiversity targets that countries will aim for without an accompanying plan for how they will be achieved.

AMAZON ALLIANCE: A collection of organisations from the Amazon basin launched the “G9 Indigenous Amazon coalition”. The coalition aims to strengthen the voices of countries and Indigenous peoples living in that region, according to the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB). This is particularly important when they are participating in international negotiations at climate and biodiversity COPs, COIAB said. El Espectador covered the launch and reported that the G9 comprises Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Suriname, Guiana and French Guiana. 

Close ties

CLIMATE LINKS: Forging closer links between action on climate change and biodiversity loss is a key priority of the Colombian COP16 presidency, with ministers expected to speak on the topic during a session of the high-level segment today. However, the negotiations for the decision text on links between climate change and biodiversity loss at the summit have been fraught. One negotiator told Carbon Brief that developing nations have concerns that tying the two problems closer together might reduce the already limited pool of funding available for either problem. Elsewhere, parties are having lengthy conversations about how the text should cover geoengineering, a term for techniques that seek to reduce warming either by drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere or reflecting sunlight away from Earth.

HEALTH TIES: A global plan to boost the policy links between biodiversity and the health of species and the environment is close to being agreed in Cali. A draft of the plan – which has been negotiated over the past four years – has just 15 square brackets (which denote matters that are still unresolved) left. Speaking at a COP16 side event, Dr Susan Lieberman, the vice-president of international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the plan is an “opportunity” to help governments tackle issues that can cause pandemics, such as the spread of pathogens from one species to another. Colman O’Criodain, the head of biodiversity policy at WWF International, told Carbon Brief in Cali: “At the end of the day, this plan is only going to be voluntary. But it’s still good guidance.” 

‘ACCELERATING’ CONSERVATION: At COP16, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched a new report concluding that governments must “accelerate” progress to fulfil the target of protecting 30% of the planet by 2030. Currently, 17.6% of land and inland waters and 8.4% of the ocean and coastal areas lie in protected and conserved areas. However, the document added, for the countries to meet the 30 by 30 conservation target – established in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – the world will need to expand such areas.

§ News and views

CORPORATIONS AT COP: An investigation by DeSmog mapped the pathways to corporate influence at the UN biodiversity talks. Alongside the government negotiators are “delegates and observers from powerful industry groups, which represent the companies whose operations are actively depleting the natural world”, the outlet wrote. It listed a range of industries represented at COP16, including commodities giants, oil majors, pharmaceutical multinationals and agrochemical companies. The article said: “Compared to climate summits, where corporate logos and lobbyists are more visible, here they are flying under the radar. Yet they have found ways to tap into the negotiations.”

DON’T HAVE A COW: The loss of livestock biodiversity is “just as critical [a] biodiversity crisis” as the loss of nature’s flora and fauna, Dr Christian Tiambo of the International Livestock Research Institute argued in the Inter-Press Service. Tiambo wrote that countries must include plans to conserve livestock biodiversity in their NBSAPs. He added: “The ability to…make use of the locally adapted characteristics of indigenous breeds is becoming increasingly valuable as the impacts of climate change threaten conventional and exotic breeds.”

CONSERVING THE CHOCÓ: Colombia and Costa Rica “announced a major biodiversity agreement to fund conservation efforts across the Chocó Biogeographic Region” at the summit, Bogota’s City Paper reported. The Chocó “is a global biodiversity hotspot threatened by deforestation, climate change and illegal activities, such as mining and logging”, it added. The announcement will “mobilise resources” to protect the region, which stretches from Panama to Peru, but no details have yet emerged on the specifics of the plan.

‘ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS’: Writing in the Conversation, Dr Jesica Lopez, who studies the Colombian Amazon, said that “the region is experiencing an environmental crisis” as “the rainforest is fast being deforested and turned into pastures for cattle ranches”. She identified a number of issues as critical to the success of COP16 and to the preservation of the Amazon, including “develop[ing] robust mechanisms to monitor progress” and “mobilis[ing] sufficient resources, particularly for developing countries”. Lopez concluded: “The summit should also work towards recognising Indigenous peoples’ rights and traditional knowledge, and including their voices in policy decisions, and must address violence against environmental defenders.”

§ Watch, read, listen

REVIVING A RIVER: Against the backdrop of COP16, a Deutsche Welle video explored a European plan to restore parts of the river Rhine, shared by Switzerland and Germany.

‘PLACEBO HOPE’: In the Guardian, Jonathan Watts reflected on promises made during COP season and warned of the “misuse of hope to encourage risk rather than responsibility”.

FOSSIL FOODS: A new Fuel to Fork podcast revealed the links between fossil fuels and food, looking at “how food accounts for 15% of global fossil fuel use”. 
NATURE RIGHTS: Context.news looked at how Latin American countries are leading the way in granting nature legal rights and the challenges in translating court wins to conservation.

§ New science

• The average peak daily growth rate for “destructive fast fires” –  defined as fires that grow more than 1,620 hectares in one day – more than doubled in the western US over 2001-20, according to new research published in Science. Using satellite data to analyse the growth rates of more than 60,000 fires, scientists found that destructive fast fires were responsible for 78% of destroyed structures and 61% of suppression costs in the US.
• Research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a 1% increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was associated with a 6.3% jump in malaria cases the following month. Using monthly deforestation and malaria case data, researchers found that “the effect of deforestation on malaria was even larger in areas with higher forest cover”.
• The net amount of CO2 that the world’s land area absorbed last year was the smallest since 2003, said a new study in National Science Review. Land regions exposed to extreme heat in 2023 “contributed a gross carbon loss”, the researchers noted, “indicating that record warming in 2023 had a strong negative impact on the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to mitigate climate change”.

§ In the diary

• 4-5 November: UN Water meeting | New York
• 5 November: US election
• 11-22 November:COP29 UNFCCC climate conference | Baku, Azerbaijan 

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected].