ROME — In the second Trump era, it was about making a point: Yes, the world can still work together to fight environmental collapse.
After three days of painful United Nations negotiations in Rome, world countries came to a delicate agreement late Thursday on boosting global finance for biodiversity that included plans to create a new fund for that purpose — something they had been stumbling on for years.
It was not the emphatic funding deal many poorer nations had fought for. But the compromise proved countries could still bridge their differences and work together for the sake of preserving the planet, despite a fracturing world order and the dramatic retreat of the United States from international green diplomacy and foreign aid under President Donald Trump.
Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, who steered the talks as COP16 president, almost broke down in tears when the meeting came to a close on Friday morning, reflecting on the difficult road that had brought countries here. She said the deal was the “light that still unites us in these dark times” of a more “fragmented and conflicted world.”
She praised a deal that provides the “legs, arms and muscles” to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. That deal, agreed in 2022, sets goals to protect at least 30 percent of the earth’s land and sea areas and increase financing for biodiversity to $200 billion annually by 2030.
Scientists have long been warning about the dramatic consequences of biodiversity loss on food production and other economic activities, as well as on the need for urgent action to reverse the negative trend of 1 million species currently being threatened with extinction.
Environmental groups broadly welcomed the outcome of COP16 — which needed a second round of talks in Rome after the first summit in Cali, Colombia, collapsed back in November — saying it provides clarity on the means to implement the Kunming-Montreal agreement.
‘Only one side of the coin’
An Lambrechts, senior campaign strategist at Greenpeace International who was in Rome, said this is “a helpful move in maintaining trust that the nature finance gap can be closed.” But “it’s only one side of the coin, and we urgently need to see the other side too: money on the table,” she warned and called on companies to chip in through the newly established Cali Fund and on rich countries to deliver on their commitment to provide $20 billion in public aid for biodiversity by the end of the year.
But when the meeting came to a close in the early hours of Friday morning and Muhamad knocked the gavel one last time under the applause of the packed room to bring to a close the COP16, multiple negotiators praised the conclusions as a victory for multilateralism.
“Achieving common ground in turbulent times … this is what we achieved at COP16,” said Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. A point that was echoed by many countries across the board, including from Latin America and small island developing states.
“At first it wasn’t certain” that we would reach a deal, said Ousseynou Kassé, the representative of Senegal. “But the result we achieved shows the commitment of the parties involved to move toward multilateralism,” he added, stressing “we must stay on this road.”
But Kassé also pointed out that the difficult talks forced African countries, which had been pushing for the quick creation of a new global biodiversity fund for years, to make numerous concessions. “This is a compromise, and a compromise must be preserved, cultivated [over time],” he warned and called to “mobilize far more resources to protect biodiversity.”
This final text remains vague on the exact shape of this new financial mechanism and pushes back a final decision on its creation to 2028.
Face-off
The three-day meeting saw African and other developing countries, in particular small island states, go head-to-head with rich nations about the strategy to drastically increase funding going to biodiversity.
European countries insisted on efforts to broaden potential sources, such as the private sector or the reform of environmentally harmful subsidies to finance conservation. But developing nations kept insisting on the creation of a new financial mechanism to ease access to the money, suggesting the existing Global Environment Facility isn’t fully doing the job.
Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s environment minister, explained that the question of a new fund was especially polarizing because “binary questions, especially in international negotiations, are always very tricky to work around.” But he also told POLITICO that donor countries did acknowledged the “common sense of urgency that we need to do something rapidly to ramp up financing to be able to meet the targets” despite a more challenging economic environment.
In recent years, “with the new security situation, higher interest rates, all of those make what we work with here more difficult,” he said in the margins of the negotiations.
The members of the BRICS group, composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, played a central role in driving the negotiations in the plenary room and behind closed doors. They also amplified demands of the African group, positioning themselves as clear allies.
Brazil even put forward a proposal on the last day which would become the basis of the final compromise. A Latin American negotiator recalled that the talks had become “frustrating” with the first compromise from the Colombian presidency tilting “too much” toward the position of rich countries, but the Brazilian proposal would contribute to rebalancing this. The U.S., which never ratified the treaty, was not involved in negotiations, and not even present in the room as observer.
In the end, an EU official said the European Union was still “very satisfied” with the deal struck, as it prevented the creation of a new fund right away — which was a red line. They also said the positive outcome was made possible thanks to a close dialogue with the BRICS countries.
“Fighting for your own interest, that’s normal, legitimate,” the EU official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, but noted that “all sides made compromises” and that the debates weren’t necessarily driven by “ideological” postures. “Everybody played its part.”
The EU also obtained that countries further discuss “opportunities for broadening the contributors base” when considering future financial instruments.
“I’m relieved also about the positive signal that this [deal at COP16] sends to other ongoing negotiations on climate change and plastics that we have,” the EU official said.
Norway’s Eriksen also told POLITICO that Friday’s agreement “won’t necessarily make the negotiations [on climate and plastic pollution] themselves easier, but I think the mindset of which parties enter those other negotiations will perhaps be a bit easier or even more constructive.”
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