The 16th edition of the world’s largest conference on nature protection officially kicks off this Monday in Colombia, with the participating countries pressured by the UN chief to “move from words to action” and increase a multimillion-dollar fund to halt biodiversity loss.
At the opening of this COP16 held the day before, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, urged the parties to make a “significant investment” in the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), which was created last year, and to “commit to mobilizing other sources of public and private financing.”
“Those who profit from nature must contribute to its protection and restoration,” Guterres said in a video message played to delegates gathered in Cali, a city in southwestern Colombia on high alert following threats from a guerrilla group.
The GBFF was created to help countries achieve the goals of the so-called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at COP15 in Canada in 2022 with 23 targets to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by 2030.
So far, countries have committed to contributing about $250 million to the fund, according to the agencies overseeing the process. Those contributions are part of a broader agreement for countries to mobilize at least $200 billion annually by 2030 for biodiversity, including $20 billion annually by 2025 from wealthy nations to help developing countries.
Guterres highlighted that the destruction of the environment increases conflicts, hunger, and diseases, fuels poverty, and reduces the gross domestic product. (PIB).
“A collapse of nature’s services – such as pollination and clean water – would mean a loss of trillions of dollars a year for the global economy, with the poorest being the most affected,” he stated.
Peace with nature
Around 12,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, including a dozen heads of state and 140 ministers, will arrive for this event which will last until November 1st. Under the slogan “Peace with Nature,” the summit has the urgent task of devising monitoring and financing mechanisms that ensure the fulfillment of the objectives set by the UN.
But the largest faction split from the defunct FARC guerrilla, the Central General Staff (EMC), is at war with the government and intends to obstruct the event, amid a six-decade internal armed conflict that has left more than 9 million victims.
On Sunday, the army captured three people on the road between Cali and the nearby Popayán, after learning of an “illegal checkpoint” by fighters from the Dagoberto Ramos front, affiliated with the EMC, who were carrying weapons and explosives.
Tensions in the area occur a week after Colombian President, the leftist Gustavo Petro, decided to intervene with the army in an EMC stronghold known as the Micay Canyon, in the department of Cauca. (suroeste). In Cali, about 11,000 Colombian police and soldiers have been deployed, supported by security personnel from the UN and the United States.
Countdown
The delegates have a lot of work ahead of them, as there are only five years left to achieve the goal of protecting 30% of terrestrial and marine areas by 2030. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains a red list of threatened animals and plants, more than a quarter of the species assessed by the organization are at risk of extinction.
Upon assuming the presidency of the COP, which is held every two years, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told delegates that the goal of “peace with nature” involves a “conceptual change in values.”
“Nature is not a resource, nature is the fabric of life, which makes our very existence possible,” he stated. Colombia is one of the countries with the greatest biodiversity in the world, and Petro has made environmental protection a banner of his struggle.
During his opening speech on Sunday, the president urged the generation of “new modes of production” and to think of “a different way to conceive and experience wealth that is no longer based on the fossil energies of death, but on clean ones.”
Colombia is also home to a large number of indigenous peoples, many of whom are victims of armed violence. The government intends to allow them to play an important role in the debates.
