'This is a very challenging negotiation': Minambiente on the closing of COP16

This week, the final leg of the Biodiversity Summit (COP16) resumes in Rome (Italy), at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The meeting, which will run from 25 to 27 February, has faced tense negotiations that hope to reach a conclusion tomorrow, Thursday.

In the final stretch, there has been reluctance from countries whose environmental policies have changed focus, such as Argentina, which during yesterday's plenary session requested that references to the Sustainable Development Goals be removed from the finance text. However, this request was rejected by the Minister of the Environment and President of COP16, Susana Muhamad, who pointed out that there were issues already agreed upon in Cali and that it was important for the States to focus on making "better use of our time."

Despite the intense debates, a final consensus on resources has not yet been reached, and it will be decided today where and who will put the money to face the complex loss of global biodiversity, although the scenario does not look positive and so far the greatest achievement has been the Cali Fund, which, although it results in important support, is still unable to resolve the gap of 700 billion dollars a year for the conservation and restoration of nature, estimated by the Global Framework for Biological Diversity.

In an interview with EL TIEMPO, the Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, stressed that the final stretch has been challenging in terms of resource mobilization, but she values ​​the success achieved with the Cali Fund in the challenge of meeting this objective.

This is a very challenging negotiation, because we have to seek approval of the resource mobilization strategy for the Kunming Montreal Framework, and also, we hope that with this, above all, the most heated discussion is how to establish the financial architecture for after 2030. This decision depends on whether everything else that is practically agreed upon, but that politically has been put into a package, can be approved. And the other important thing is the technical indicators to measure the Kunming Montreal Framework, that is, to know if the countries are fulfilling their biodiversity plans and the 23 goals of the Framework, and also how the report will be made every two years on the state of compliance and biodiversity in the world. These are the three strategic decisions, but it depends on the resource mobilization decision so that everything else can be approved. This is what I would describe as the arms and legs, the muscle, so that the Kunming Montreal Framework, the 23 goals for 2030 and post-2030 can work.

The Cali Fund is now ready to receive resources and companies that use genetic resources that are digitalized in databases must contribute to it. Normally, the sectors that use these databases a lot are the cosmetics sector, the nutraceutical sector, the agri-food sector, the development of plants and animals, the pharmaceutical sector, they are very large sectors, and if they enter the fund they commit to contribute between 1% of their income or 0.1% of their profits. Once they enter the Cali Fund, this commitment is already made, so what needs to be worked on is a great campaign so that companies begin to enter the Cali Fund, so that contributions begin to arrive and the resources can be distributed to countries that care for biodiversity.

The COP is going to close here in Rome, and it is a continuation of the plenary in Colombia. The reason we are in Rome is simply the fact that the quorum in Cali has run out, but this is really a continuation, so here the plenary of COP16 officially closes. COP16 was already a triumph, the decisions that were taken in Cali are historic, even four months after Cali the Fund is operating, the implementation of the Subsidiary Body for Indigenous Peoples and local communities begins, the social appropriation that was achieved, the marine areas of special protection, among others the biodiversity and health plan. These are all decisions that were already taken in Cali and that are ready for implementation. And we hope to close with this, which is what gives the muscles and the arms and the hands to the Kunming Montreal Framework, and I believe that there Colombia will have basically managed to get all the decisions approved.

Environment and Health Journalist