What to expect from this week’s biodiversity COP

by Barbara Machado

At the UN Biodiversity Conference, which starts today (21 October) in Colombia, countries seek to reach the necessary agreement to deliver on their nature protection pledges.

With the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022, the world committed to dedicated targets to reverse nature loss by 2030.

This year’s Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) is the first to take place since the GBF’s adoption and is being styled as an ’implementation’ COP.

From 21 October to 1 November 2024, more than 190 countries will meet in Cali, Colombia, to track their progress so far. They will also seek agreement on four essential topics that can make or break the successful implementation of the GBF – monitoring, financing, harmful subsidies, and benefit-sharing.

Despite high expectations, the large majority of countries have not followed through on their commitments.

To date, only 31 out of 196 parties have presented their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) despite an agreement to submit these plans ahead of COP16. Even Colombia, the host country, has failed to submit its NBSAP.

“We have to convince other countries and continents to be as ambitious as Europe,“ Ionu?-Sorin Banciu, Romania’s secretary of state at the ministry of environment, told journalists at the EU environment council meeting last week, referring to COP16.

While the EU wants to lead the way on biodiversity this week, and has already submitted its plan, the truth is that only nine EU member states have presented their own plans, with Romania absent from the list.

NBSAPs are necessary not only to kickstart concrete action but also to allow progress to be evaluated.

Countries will aim to agree on a monitoring framework in this COP, which should include mechanisms for reporting and reviewing countries’ progress in the implementation of the GBF.

Three topics are high on the COP16 agenda: new investments, harmful subsidies re-direction and benefit sharing on DSI usage.

Financing and harmful subsidies

Working towards their biodiversity goals will require countries to invest substantially. Under the GBF, governments committed to mobilising €184 billion annually for biodiversity by 2030.

In Colombia, the countries will discuss how to achieve this in practice, the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) told Euractiv.

Before 2030, another intermediate target should have been achieved: €18 billion by 2025, which is intended to assist developing countries. However, countries are still 23% short of achieving the target, according to a recent OECD report.

At the same time, there are different opinions on how to close this gap, and the parties may not agree on the process, according to the CBD secretariat.

Another GBF target under discussion aims to reduce and repurpose €460 billion in harmful subsidies per year. Currently, environmentally damaging incentives are valued at trillions of dollars every year, according to a World Bank report.

At COP16, governments will find possible ways to redirect these harmful subsidies towards actions with a nature-positive impact.

Benefit sharing

A controversial issue on the agenda is the Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources. DSI refers to genetic sequences of biodiversity in databases, increasingly relied upon by companies in the pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors.

This has led to much debate on how to share access and benefits equitably.

If countries resolve their disputes, they could reach a deal ensuring fair and equitable sharing of benefits from DSI usage.

“Such an agreement would ensure that benefits from the use of DSI [...] are shared with the countries of origin of the genetic resources and that the financial benefits stemming from it can support financing the GBF targets,” a recent European Parliament study reads.

With biodiversity loss increasing at alarming rates, there is much at stake in this COP, set against the backdrop of the ’Peace with Nature’ theme. Whether countries can move beyond fine words to deliver concrete action remains to be seen.

*first published in: Euractiv.com