COP15, idea of creating fund to finance biodiversity divides negotiators

The environment ministers of some 110 states began, Thursday, December 15 in Canada, a decisive negotiation session.

by Perrine Mouterde (Montreal, Canada, Special Envoy )

The egg or the hen? Should we first agree on funding so that the ambition follows, or wait for firm commitments to the objectives to be achieved to then discuss resources? The issue of financial means, and particularly the question of creating a new fund, has largely hampered the progress of discussions in the 15 global conference (COP15) for biodiversity. Environmental ministers of some 110 states began a decisive negotiation session on Thursday, December 15 in Canada. Political signals were expected to try to get out of the dead end and to move forward on the most complex subjects.

“Time will soon miss”

The COP15 is supposed to lead, by December 19, to the adoption of a global agreement to put an end to the collapse of biodiversity by 2030. “There are still so many things To do and time will soon be missing, “recalled the United Nations general vice-secretary, Amina J. Mohammed, when the debates opened. “Developed countries must financially support developing nations so that the global agreement is implemented, she also insisted. It is very important for these countries which house a large part of world biodiversity and support a disproportionate cost for the gradual loss of this common good. “

A vast coalition, which are part of African countries, Brazil, India and Indonesia, calls for a considerable increase in funding from south, but also to the creation of a new mechanism that would complete the current global environment fund (FEM). Sign of the level of tension, delegates from the South had left a working group, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, to denounce the inflexibility of the Northern negotiators on this subject.

“How can the developed world recognize the extent of planetary crises and not respond to calls for greater ambition in the financing of biodiversity, beyond existing architecture, through strategies And additional and innovative instruments? “Asks the Brazilian transition team in a letter addressed Wednesday to the Convention on the Biological Diversity of the United Nations.

“African countries have come to Montreal with the intention of adopting a global framework for biodiversity. But if we do not have the means necessary for its implementation, it is not use, also explains Jeremy Tinga Ouedraogo , Program coordinator within the Development Agency of the African Union. We need a fund entirely dedicated to biodiversity that is different from FEM, whose limits we know. “

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/Media reports cited above.