Nations cheered a last-gasp deal to map out funding to protect nature Thursday, February 27, breaking a deadlock at UN talks seen as a test for international cooperation in the face of geopolitical tensions.
Rich and developing countries hammered out a delicate compromise on raising and delivering the billions of dollars needed to protect species, overcoming stark divisions that had scuttled their previous meeting in Cali, Colombia last year. Delegates stood and clapped in an emotionally charged final meeting that saw the key decisions adopted in the final minutes of the last day of rebooted negotiations at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome.
"The applause is for all of you. You have done an amazing job," said COP16 President Susana Muhamad of Colombia. Posting soon after on X, she called it a "historic day," adding: "we achieved the adoption of the first global plan to finance the conservation of life on Earth."
The decision comes more than two years after a landmark deal to halt the rampant destruction of nature this decade and protect the ecosystems and wildlife that humans rely on for food, climate regulation, and economic prosperity. Scientists have warned that action is urgent. A million species are threatened with extinction, while unsustainable farming and consumption destroys forests, depletes soils and spreads plastic pollution to even the most remote areas of the planet.
The COP16 agreement on Thursday is seen as crucial to giving impetus to the 2022 deal, which saw countries agree to halt the destruction of nature by the end of this decade and protect 30 percent of the world's land and seas. The talks were also seen as a bellwether for international cooperation more generally.
The meeting comes as countries face a range of challenges, from trade disputes and debt worries to the slashing of overseas aid – particularly by new US President Donald Trump. Washington, which has not signed up to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, sent no representatives to the meeting.
"Our efforts show that multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty," said Steven Guilbeault, Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
The failure to finalise an agreement in Cali was the first in a string of disappointing outcomes at environmental summits last year. A climate finance deal at COP29 in Azerbaijan in November was slammed by developing countries, while separate negotiations about desertification and plastic pollution stalled in December.
Muhamad, who has resigned as Colombia's environment minister but stayed on to serve until after the Rome conference, said members of her team were brought to tears by the last-minute agreement.
Thursday saw intense closed door talks based on a "compromise attempt" text that Brazil put forward on behalf of the BRICS country bloc that includes Russia, China and India.
Brazil's negotiator Maria Angelica Ikeda told AFP earlier that financing has been a flashpoint long before the current international tensions, adding that the BRICS proposal sought to be "very sensitive" to a broad spectrum of views.
Countries have already agreed to deliver $200 billion a year in finance for nature by 2030, including $30 billion a year from wealthier countries to poorer ones. The total for 2022 was about $15 billion, according to the OECD.
Thursday's decision sets out two main strands of action in the coming years – to find billions of dollars in extra funding for biodiversity and to decide on the institutions that will deliver the money. Georgina Chandler, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Zoological Society of London, said the finance roadmap was a "key milestone," but stressed that money is needed urgently.
"With only five years left to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, securing the necessary funds to accomplish this mission is more essential than ever," she said. Other decisions sought to bolster monitoring to ensure countries are held accountable for their progress towards meeting biodiversity targets.