“Nobody can be satisfied with this result,” lamented Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler after the UN conference on species protection that ended on Saturday. Due to the early departure of many delegations from the conference venue, no agreement could be reached on the financing issues.
The chair of COP16, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, declared the conference over on Saturday because the necessary quorum for voting could no longer be reached. The conference was supposed to end on Friday, but Muhamad extended it to reach an agreement on financing species protection, but to no avail. According to reports, the meeting will continue at a later date.
The negotiating front consisted largely of delegates from richer countries and delegates from poorer countries. A biodiversity fund proposed by Muhamad to finance global species conservation was rejected by the European Union, Switzerland and Japan. Developing countries in turn criticized them for not taking sufficient account of existing compensation mechanisms and for explicitly demanding a biodiversity fund. According to recent studies, more than a quarter of known plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.
A partial agreement had already been reached earlier. Delegates agreed to set up a fund to share profits from the use of plant and animal genetic data. The so-called Cali Fund stipulates that companies or other users of the data that exploit it commercially “pay a portion of their profits or revenues to the global fund,” as the agreement states.
Even a partial agreement is not binding
From a certain income level, profiteers would have to pay one percent of their profits or 0.1 percent of their income into the fund, according to the agreement. Under UN supervision, half of the fund’s resources then go to the states where the species occurs and the other half to the relevant indigenous peoples. However, the agreement is not binding on the industries mentioned in the document, including the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.
Gewessler with critical balance
Environment Minister Gewessler drew a critical conclusion: “Some of it has been achieved, but a lot of work remains.” WWF Austria called the provisional end of the conference “a bitter disappointment”. “While biological diversity is declining dramatically and our livelihoods are threatened, politicians lack the ambition and consistency to make real progress,” said WWF expert Joschka Brangs in a press release.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
