Negotiators reached a historic deal at a UN biodiversity conference that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world. 9News
, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft on Sunday that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum.
The deal also calls for raising US$200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework asks for increasing to at least US$20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries. That number would increase to US$30 billion each year by 2030.
“Creating a fund under the GEF is the best way to obtain something immediate and efficient,” said Christophe Béchu, France’s minister for ecological transition who headed its delegation, adding that a completely new fund would have taken several years to establish and deprived developing countries of immediate cash for biodiversity.
“Many of us wanted more things in the text and more ambition but we got an ambitious package,” Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said. “We have 30 by 30. Six months ago, who would have thought we could 30 by 30 in Montreal? We have an agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, to work on restoration, to reduce the use of pesticides. This is tremendous progress.
Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.
Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide US$100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.
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