A finance strategy adopted Thursday, to applause and tears from delegates, underpins “our collective capacity to sustain life on this planet”, said Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister and COP16 president. Negotiators faced a “very polarised, fragmented, divisive and conflicted geopolitical landscape” and demonstrated that “multilateralism can deliver”.
More than 140 countries adopted a strategy to mobilise hundreds of billions of dollars a year to help reverse dramatic losses in biodiversity, though failed to decide on establishing a new global nature fund — a key demand of developing economies.
Nations attending the 16th United Nations Biodiversity Conference, known as COP16, in Rome deferred a decision on a new fund — intended to help accelerate the flow of financing to projects — until 2028. The talks followed a previous inconclusive summit in Colombia last year.
