Negotiations stall over some crucial issues on final day of UN biodiversity summit in Colombia

CALI, Colombia (AP) — At the United Nations biodiversity summit in Colombia, negotiators have struggled to find common ground on key issues.

These include how to finance protections for 30% of the world's plants and animals by 2030, how to establish a permanent body for Indigenous peoples and how to make payments for nature’s genetic data that's used to create commercial products.

The two-week conference, known as COP16, was due to wrap up Friday, although observers say negotiations could go into the weekend.

In 2022, the biodiversity summit in Montreal, COP15, established a framework for countries to go about saving plummeting global ecosystems. This year’s follow-up summit was to put plans into motion.

"COP15 was all about the ‘what’; this was supposed to be about the ‘how,’” Georgina Chandler, head of policy and campaigns at The Zoological Society of London, told The Associated Press.

Wealthy nations pledged in Montreal’s summit to raise $20 billion in annual conservation financing for developing nations by 2025 — with that rising to $30 billion annually by 2030.

“I don’t think we’ve seen governments come here with increased commitments towards the $20 billion significant enough that we’re going to achieve that," Chandler said. "That’s fallen a bit short.”

The lack of financial pledges from wealthy countries prompted 20 ministers from the Global South to release a joint statement calling for the need to build trust among nations and for the Global North to meet its finance targets.

In the run-up to negotiations, over 230 businesses and financial institutions demanded stronger policy ambitions to address the growing risks of nature loss, said Eva Zabey, CEO of Business for Nature.

“In the final stretch at COP16, negotiations are stalling on crucial issues — including the mobilization of meaningful financial resources and a way for companies to ensure the benefits of nature are valued and shared fairly,” Zabey said.

“We need governments to put aside their differences and demonstrate real and urgent leadership to deliver a strong COP16 outcome that incentivizes and drives necessary business action, further and faster, to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030,” she said.

Who owns nature's DNA was a major topic at the summit. There was tension between poorer and developed countries over digital sequence information on genetic resources (DSI). This would oblige the sharing of benefits when genetic resources from animals, plants or microorganisms are used in biotechnologies. In Montreal, countries agreed to set up a global fund.

“The DSI fund was scheduled to be adopted here two years ago. There is no clarity on how money will be gathered from companies,” said Oscar Soria, director of The Common Initiative. “As the text reads it is purely voluntary.”

Sources told AP that there has been significant back and forth over wording in the draft agreement by nations.

’It’s clear that a number of points are going down to the wire in the COP16 negotiations," Catherine Weller, Director of Global Policy at charity Fauna & Flora said.

One of the biggest controversies during talks was the blocking by a few countries of a Permanent Subsidiary Body for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who Weller says bring valuable insights to many discussions.

“We urge the negotiators to step up and ensure this is finalized,” she said.

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