COP16 biodiversity summit enters 'heart-stopping' final day with divide over funding
The COP16 summit on biodiversity is set to end Friday with negotiations stalled over how to reach funding targets of $200 billion per year for biodiversity by 2030. Developing countries have called for more money and better representation in decision-making as Indigenous peoples and local communities held demonstrations calling for better rights and protections.
The world's biggest nature conservation conference enters its final day in Colombia Friday with negotiators at odds over how best to fund plans to "halt and reverse" species loss.
Amid murmurs that the talks may drag into an extra day, summit president Susana Muhamad said Friday's programmed closing session promised to be "heart-stopping" given the number of unresolved issues.
"It's a very complex negotiation, with many interests, many parties... and that means everyone has to cede something," Muhamad, who is Colombia's environment minister, told reporters Thursday.
With some 23,000 registered delegates, the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which opened in Cali on October 21, is the biggest meeting of its kind ever.
The event is a follow-up to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon in Canada two years ago, where it was decided that $200 billion per year must be made available for biodiversity by 2030.
(AFP)
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