Countries agree to mobilize $200 billion funds every year by 2030 to conserve biodiversity

Rome: Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) have agreed to close the global biodiversity finance gap by mobilizing at least 200 billion dollars a year by 2030 to help developing countries conserve biodiversity.

At a meeting in Rome, COP also adopted a “Strategy for Resource Mobilization” that identifies a broad range of instruments, to mobilise the funds needed for implementation of the ambitious Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework ( KMGBF).

Nations also agreed for the first time to a “permanent arrangement” for providing biodiversity finance to developing nations, “future-proofing” the flow of funds past 2030.

The agreement on finance comes despite the world’s largest biodiversity donor the US deciding to withdraw most of its nature funding under Donald Trump.

The decision is also aligned with the Global Environment Facility, the interim financial mechanism approved over 3 billion USD in support of the KMGBF, leveraging more than 22 billion in co-financing, including 1.9 billion from the private sector.

“These days of work in Rome have demonstrated the commitment of the Parties to advance the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

The COP 16 presidency recognises the collective effort to reach consensus of key issues that were left pending in Cali” said Susana Muhamad, Cop 16 President.

“The results of this meeting show that multilateralism works and is the vehicle to build the partnerships needed to protect biodiversity and move us towards Peace with Nature” said Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

It also committed 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.

COP16 was the first UN biodiversity summit following the adoption in 2022 of a landmark agreement, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), at COP15. The overall goal of the GBF is to “halt and reverse biodiversity” loss by 2030, through four goals and 23 targets.

Meanwhile, more than half of nations that have submitted UN biodiversity plans do not commit to the GBF’s flagship target of protecting 30% of land and seas for nature by 2030.