Diplomats from nearly 200 countries ended two weeks of environmental talks on Saturday after agreeing on a new fund that would shift some of the profits from nature’s DNA to global conservation efforts.
The agreement calls on companies that make money from genetic information stored in databases, technically known as digital sequence information, to pay into a fund as a sort of fee for the use of biodiversity.
Scientific advances have made it easier and cheaper for researchers to sequence genetic material. That means there are now vast amounts available in databases for pharmaceutical, cosmetic, biotechnology and other companies to analyze as they seek to develop new products.
Delegates at the talks, known as COP16, shorthand for 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, called the agreement an important breakthrough.
“Conservation is mostly funded by governments and philanthropy,” said Amber Scholz, head of the science policy department at Leibniz Institute DSMZ, a German research institute that focuses on microbial and cellular biodiversity. “Now, businesses that profit from biodiversity will pay into a new fund.”
The final declaration made the fund voluntary, saying that companies “should” contribute.
The agreement lays out specifics on how much they should pay: 1 percent of their profits or 0.1 percent of their revenue, as a guideline. Governments are “invited” to take legislative or other measures that could require companies to contribute.
Such a fund could raise perhaps $1 billion per year for biodiversity conservation, according to research commissioned by the secretariat that governs the treaty.
In a move that signals the growing recognition of Indigenous people as custodians of biodiversity, half the funds are directed toward them, though countries reserved some wiggle room.
The talks ran past their Friday evening deadline and ended abruptly on Saturday when delegates began leaving for the airport and quorum was lost. Certain agenda items, including a contentious one on how to mobilize and distribute $200 billion a year by 2030, remained unresolved.
The negotiations will resume at a future date, officials said.
COP16 was a follow-up to the 15th round of global biodiversity talks, held in Montreal in 2022, which set ambitious targets to conserve and restore nature.
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