With a new document on the table, COP16 could end with an agreement in principle

The aim of the new document presented at the end of the day on Wednesday by the presidency of the 16th Conference of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity , which is taking place in Rome, was to draw up a roadmap that would pave the way for reconciling the extreme positions of developing countries and richer nations. There are some fundamental differences, so the more serious discussion will be held on Thursday, after the countries have had the opportunity to analyse the document in detail.

“We will see how far we can go. For us, it was important to reach a conclusion, even if some points remain open, and not to say that there was no agreement,” said the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, in Rome, where negotiations for this Biodiversity Summit are taking place.

The Portuguese leader acknowledges the difficulty of reaching a concrete decision at this conference – the agreement could only be in principle, something like agreeing to continue negotiating, without breaking the climate of dialogue.

Disagreements about mechanism

“Countries have to face their differences , they have to find common ground to deal with the issue of financing biodiversity,” Guido Broekhoven, from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), who is in Rome following the negotiations, told Azul .

Developing nations want a fund specifically dedicated to financing biodiversity, while the European Union, among other industrialized countries, prefers that the 200 billion promised to preserve nature by 2030 be administered by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multilateral fund created to finance the actions of several environmental conventions. The disagreement caused the COP16 in Cali, Colombia, to collapse in November, and forced the negotiations to be resumed in Rome.

“For us, it is important to reach a common language, an understanding. Even if we do not come away from here with closed conclusions, which are not very detailed in relation to all the points of biodiversity financing”, said the Portuguese minister to Azul , placing herself in the position of a European Union country.

Maria da Graça Carvalho also stated that “Portugal launched a collaboration initiative with the PALOP countries, not only to try to boost dialogue at COP16, but also for various actions, such as the translation into Portuguese of international documents relating to biodiversity and training actions”.

Operationalization only in 2030?

The document presented by the president of COP16, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, speaks, for example, of “evaluating and mobilizing financing from all sources”, “designating or establishing a dedicated global instrument, or instruments, for financing biodiversity”, but postpones its “full operationalization” to COP19 of the Convention on Biodiversity .

As Biodiversity Summits are only held every two years, and COP17 will be in 2026, in Armenia, COP19 would only be in 2030.

Perhaps the night will be a good advisor to the 153 countries present in Rome to deliberate on the future of biodiversity protection, and could pave the way for a breakthrough on Thursday.

The document presented by the presidency appears to be an attempt to carry out the delicate balancing act that Aleksandar Rankovic, from the Common Initiative think tank , imagined as the ideal proposal to be presented to the plenary, in order to try to unblock the negotiations: “A document that would give one side the assurance that the creation of a new fund is still on the table, while also giving the other side the assurance that it was not yet decided to create one. It would, however, give the certainty that we would continue to talk in a structured way, with a clear roadmap to continue evaluating the options that we have before us in the next five years”, he explained.

PÚBLICO traveled at the invitation of the Ministry of Environment and Energy