The priority of UN biodiversity conference COP16 should be delivering on the international pledges from Montreal while tracking progress, a World Resources Institute (WRI) executive said on Tuesday.

COP16, which starts on Oct. 21 in Cali, Colombia, will be a moment for the planet to rethink its relationship with the natural world, Wanjira Mathai, managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the WRI told a press call.

It is “time to deliver on the promise” of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), agreed in 2022, said Mathai during the online event organised by WRI.

“This COP is about turning that agreement into action, and beginning to track action around the plans that countries have – the finance, the policies.”

“We expect by COP16, that all countries will put forward equitable National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).”

Only 20 countries have fulfilled their commitment to update their NBSAPs before COP16 so far, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s website. These include China, the EU, and Jordan.

“Countries will have to set up a monitoring framework at COP16 that will measure progress towards the GBF goals,” said Mathai.

Independent monitoring can play a critical role alongside official monitoring by governments, she added.

“The core issue of COP16 is also whether developed countries will follow through on their promise to provide $20 billion by 2025 … we will need significant resources, additional capital, but also innovative mechanisms to attract private sector capital.”

Part of Target 19 in the GBF is to mobilise at least $20 bln annually by 2025 for developing countries, and at least $30 bln per year by 2030, but so far this figure is not close to being achieved.

“Another critical part of countries’ plans should be to increase Indigenous Peoples and frontline community engagement in all work on nature.”

The world is losing 10 football field-sized areas of tropical forest every minute through deforestation, but policy on deforestation can work – as has been proven in countries such as Gabon, according to WRI.

Africa will be central to the conversation in Cali, Mathai said.

BIODIVERSITY CREDITS

Biodiversity credits will be a focus at COP16, ensuring they have adequate guidelines, standards, and methodologies to achieve credibility, she said in response to a question from Carbon Pulse.

The Cali conference will include conversations around innovative sources of finance like nature markets, biodiversity credits particularly, added Crystal Davis, the global director for the food, land, and water programme at WRI.

“Obviously [the biodiversity credits concept is] controversial. Some see it as quite promising. Others see it as quite risky, the greenwashing risk in particular. WRI hasn’t taken a strong position on this either way,” said Davis.

“What I will say is we need more private finance. We can’t close the nature financing gap without it, but we also shouldn’t try to rely on a single type of incentive or mechanism. We need diversified options.”

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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