The COP16 meeting was supposed to have ended on Friday, but it dragged on and on. And as time went on on Saturday, more and more delegates disappeared to catch their booked flights home.
In the end, there were so few left that it was impossible to make decisions. The meeting was adjourned instead, before any of the most important issues had been resolved.
No decisions on financing
One of the issues is whether a new fund should be established to finance the measures needed to save nature. There has been an agreement since before to collect 20 billion dollars, equivalent to 214 billion kronor, annually from 2025.
No decision was also made on how to follow up on the goals agreed upon at COP15 in Montreal.
Climate and Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari (L) says in a written comment to TT that "if you don't establish transparency and the right to participation in the environmental work being carried out, it will be very difficult to agree on further financing through new funds".
She also says that Sweden will "do everything we can to contribute to progress".
To be resumed
A spokesperson for the organizers tells the AFP news agency that the meeting will be resumed at a later time to address the remaining issues.
Charlotta Sörqvist points out that several decisions have still been made at COP16. She highlights, among other things, that a permanent body has been established to represent indigenous peoples and local communities' interests in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
This is a major decision that we are pleased with.
Sharing the profits
Another major issue that has been resolved is the creation of a fund to distribute the profits from digital genetic information.
The data is called digital sequence information (DSI) and often comes from species found in poor countries. The information can be used to create new products – food, medicine, and cosmetics – and developers can earn billions from it.
The fund aims to share a portion of the profits with the communities where the species come from.
Then you can use these profits to support projects with biological diversity, says Charlotta Sörqvist.
The UN biodiversity conference, COP16, took place in Cali, Colombia, starting on October 21.
COP stands for Conference of the Parties and refers to the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The number 16 indicates which meeting it is.
The meeting is usually held every other year. Last time, in 2022, Montreal in Canada hosted. The historic agreement reached there includes 23 action goals and is called the Kunming-Montreal GBF (Global Framework for Biological Diversity).
The addition of Kunming comes from the fact that the Chinese city was supposed to host the meeting, which was changed due to China's then covid restrictions.
Biological diversity is the variation that exists within and between species and ecosystems. Simply put – how many living organisms there are.
Biological diversity contributes to functioning ecosystems, which in turn are a prerequisite for us humans to get food on the table, clean water, and fresh air.
The crisis for biological diversity is acute, and researchers warn that the world is heading towards a sixth mass extinction. For example, vertebrate populations have decreased by 70 percent since 1970.
In Sweden, too, several reports have shown a serious situation and negative trend for biological diversity. Currently, more than 4,700 species are red-listed here.
Sources: The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and SLU
