Colombia, World: COP 16 connects finance, climate, energy and biodiversity

(Cali, October 24, 2024, Dialogue Earth).- The UN biodiversity summit COP 16 began on October 21 in Colombia, one of the 17 most biodiverse countries in the world. More than 23,000 representatives from governments, civil society, media and other sectors – a record number for a biodiversity conference – gathered in Cali, the country’s third largest city, for two weeks of discussions under a heavy police presence.

The summit came two years after COP15, where 196 countries signed a global agreement on conservation that set four long-term goals and 23 specific targets to be achieved by 2030 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss . In Cali, governments wanted to focus on implementing this agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), and many were called upon to submit updated national plans.

For Latin America, the conference was an opportunity to highlight the region’s key role in conserving biodiversity in the face of the growing threat from extractive industries. Colombia, which holds the COP presidency, also intended to put energy systems and energy transition issues high on the agenda. At previous summits, the issue of energy received less attention, but the connection to biodiversity, natural resources and climate change was highlighted by the Colombian presidency and was the subject of discussions in various panels at the event.

“Latin America is a leader in renewable energy and biodiversity, both issues are closely linked,” Susana Muhamad, Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development and Chair of COP 16, told Dialogue Earth: “We are starting to discuss this overlap, so that governments can take public measures that reconcile both objectives. It’s not just about decarbonization. If we don’t restore ecosystems on a significant scale, we won’t be able to stabilize the climate.”

According to climate think tank Ember, Latin America generated 62 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources last year, mostly hydropower but with a growing share of solar and wind energy. The region is also an established producer of numerous important minerals for clean energy technologies, including 40 percent of copper production and 35 percent of global lithium production.

“We are being sacrificed in the name of the energy transition”

However, the expansion of solar and wind farms has led to conflicts with the local population in recent years, resulting in land disputes and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems. The same applies to the numerous new mining projects in the region from Argentina to Peru. In 2023, 23 percent of investments in the region were in minerals and essential raw materials.

“We are not against the energy transition, but we are being sacrificed in the name of the energy transition,” Iber Sarapura, from the municipality of Alfarcito in the Salinas Grandes salt flats in northern Argentina, told Dialogue Earth in Cali. Projects to exploit the lithium deposits in Salinas Grandes are generating great interest, but also strong local resistance. We live in the only salt mine in Argentina that has said “no” to lithium, in a place where it only rules for one week a year. “Water is more valuable than lithium,” says Sarapura.

Financing biodiversity at COP 16

As part of the GBF, countries agreed that at least $200 billion would be needed annually to protect and restore biodiversity. The United Nations has established a fund for the GBF, but before the conference only seven countries had committed funds to it, totaling $243 million.

In their contributions to COP 16, Latin American governments emphasized the need for developed countries to allocate more resources to biodiversity. Gillian Guthrie, Jamaica’s representative to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), spoke in the plenary session on behalf of the Latin American and Caribbean negotiating group GRULAC.

“Adequate funding is a prerequisite for the implementation of a GBF. “Funding is alarmingly inadequate because that means projects on the ground are underfunded,” Guthrie said. “Developing countries must mobilize resources at the national level while combating poverty, hunger and inequality.” We are committed to an equitable financial architecture for biodiversity.”

International cooperation essential

Brazil said in a statement on behalf of the Group of Highly Biodiverse Countries – 20 states that host 70 percent of the world’s biodiversity – that while it has everything in its power to implement the GBF, international cooperation is essential. “The level of cooperation, whether through bilateral channels or multilateral institutions, has not been sufficient, appropriate and predictable,” the document said.

Emilio Spataro, biodiversity officer at the non-governmental organization Group for Climate Finance for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), told Dialogue Earth that it would be impossible to achieve the GBF’s biodiversity goals without a broader funding debate. These statements echoed the words of Colombian President Gustavo Petro in the opening session.

“The United States, China and Europe are demanding risk premiums from countries that can already absorb CO2 from the atmosphere like sponges in our forests and jungles,” Petro said. “Risk premium from traditional to desire absorbing the CO2 emitted by the world’s mega-rich is a moral and deadly contradiction,” he added. “The richest predators should be taxed to reduce production and consumption of CO2.”

National plans

Under the GBF, countries committed to presenting their national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) before COP 16. These are plans for how countries want to achieve the goals of the agreement. However, a week before the end of the conference, 83 percent of the 196 contracting states to the CBD have not yet submitted their updated plans.

In Latin America, only Colombia, Mexico, Suriname and Cuba have so far submitted their plans. The Colombian plan, for example, is based on expanding protected areas by ten percent to 34 percent of the country’s area by 2030 and establishing a clear connection between nature and climate. The country expects that three percent of its GDP will depend on biodiversity by 2030 (today it is 0.8 percent), which would boost the bioeconomy.

The so-called high-level segment of COP 16 took place at the end of October and was attended by, among others, Presidents Lula da Silva from Brazil, Dina Boluarte from Peru and Xiomara Castro from Honduras.

COP 16 was due to end on November 1 with an agreement on how progress towards the GBF’s goals will be monitored, reported and reviewed. The countries also wanted to complete negotiations on benefit-sharing for the use of digital sequence information (DSI) on plant and animal genetic resources and adopt a plan to link health and nature, to name just a few topics.

“We should not see the global biodiversity framework as an obstacle or a risk, but as an opportunity to think about a new economy,” said Muhamad.

Translation: Deborah Schmiedel

COP 16 connects finance, climate, energy and biodiversity by Newspool Latin America is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.