• The extended session of COP16 in Rome ended on February 28, after participants landed on a significant new agreement to address the global nature crisis.

• This extended session follows the original meeting of COP16 in Cali, Colombia in November 2024.

• Delegates met in Rome for the resumption of the UN Biodiversity Conference to hammer out an agreement at COP16.2 after attempts to reach a deal on financing at COP16 in Cali fell short.

• The next Conference of the Parties (COP17) will take place in 2026 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Strategy on implementing Global Biodiversity Framework

• The governments agreed on the strategy to raise the funds needed to protect biodiversity and achieve the action targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). 

• Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity worked into the early morning hours to hammer out agreements on biodiversity finance, on planning, monitoring, reporting and review, and the full set of indicators to measure global and national progress towards implementing the KMGBF. 

• The framework was finalised a little over two years ago – a historic UN-driven agreement to guide global action on nature through to 2030, which was hashed out at meetings in China’s Kunming and Canada’s Montreal in 2022.

• The Global Biodiversity Framework aims to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, who suffer disproportionately from biodiversity loss and environmental degradation.

• The global framework also contains concrete measures to halt and reverse nature loss, including protection measures covering 30 per cent of the planet and 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems by 2030.

• Currently only 17 per cent of land and around eight per cent of marine areas are protected.

• After intense negotiations, Parties to the Convention agreed on a way forward in terms of resource mobilisation with a view to close the global biodiversity finance gap and achieve the target of mobilising at least $200 billion a year by 2030, including $20 billion a year in international flows by 2025, rising to $30 billion by 2030.

• This includes the commitment to establish permanent arrangements for the financial mechanism in accordance with Articles 21 and 39 of the Convention while simultaneously working on improving existing financial instruments.  

• It outlines the main principles and steps that will shape the evolution of these existing financial instruments, and any others that may be created.

• It also includes a roadmap of the activities and decision-making milestones from now, through the 17th, 18th and 19th meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, until 2030.

• The deal will see global collaboration on raising finance for biodiversity, and details of the monitoring framework of the Global Biodiversity Framework targets finalised to accelerate nature recovery.

• An agreement on resource mobilisation creates a clear strategy for global collaboration on raising finance from all sources to fund the work necessary to achieve the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.  

• The finalisation of a monitoring framework and the global approach to reviewing progress in delivering the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, will ensure a shared approach to tracking progress with transparency and accountability. 

Launch of Cali Fund

• On the margins of COP16.2, the Cali Fund, which was created in Colombia, was officially launched, ushering in a new era for biodiversity financing.

• It was set up for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources. 

• This is an important step to allow companies who utilise genetic databases derived from nature, such as the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and biotech sectors, to direct funds on a voluntary basis towards the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who safeguard biodiversity.

How the Cali Fund will benefit biodiversity?

• Companies making commercial use of data from genetic resources in nature in a range of lucrative industries will be expected to contribute a portion of their revenue to the fund.

• Contributions to the Cali Fund will be used to implement the UN Biodiversity Convention, including by supporting the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

• At least 50 per cent of the Cali Fund resources will be allocated to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, recognising their role as custodians of biodiversity.

Additional Read:

Convention on Biological Diversity

The Earth’s biological resources are vital to our economic and social development but human activities are taking a toll on many animal and plant species. A legal framework exists for countries all over the world to protect biodiversity together: the Convention on Biological Diversity.

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