Colombia plans to rely on regulated carbon and biodiversity credit markets to meet its financing targets under its newly released National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), government officials told Carbon Pulse at the ongoing COP16 UN biodiversity summit.

The plan, presented on Monday during the opening day of the conference in Cali, Colombia, includes a target of mobilising COP$22.5 billion ($5.2 million) in investments for biodiversity conservation by 2030, up from COP$1.4 bln in 2024.

“Biodiversity credits can play an important role in ramping up financing for nature, just like carbon credits,” Mauricio Cabrera Leal, vice minister of Environmental Policies and Regulation, told Carbon Pulse. “Our plan is to regulate them.”

The Colombian government is set to establish a domestic emissions trading scheme (ETS), with Environment Minister Susana Muhamad announcing in August that an emissions cap will soon be set on a sector-by-sector basis, culminating in an auction of allowances slated for 2025.

Voluntary carbon and biodiversity credits are also likely to be regulated, as suggested by Cabrera Leal.

“There’s a wide array of financing tools and instruments that can be used to mobilise funds for nature – carbon credits, biodiversity credits, and green bonds, for instance,” added Carolina Diaz Giraldo, director of environment and sustainable development at the National Department of Planning.

Offsetting, payments for ecosystem services (PES), philanthropic donations, and investment from the public sector are also among the sources of funding identified by Colombia’s NBSAP to drive resources towards nature conservation and restoration activities.

“The crucial point is understanding how and in what moment each of them can be deployed, who is going to benefit from these tools and mechanisms, and how they interact with each other,” Diaz Giraldo told Carbon Pulse.

“The high correlation between carbon taxes and the value of CO2 within a regulated market is just one of many examples.”

Last month, the Colombian government presented a draft financing bill that would bring the national carbon tax to COP$75,000 from COP$25,799.56, amid accusations that it remains too low.

THE NATIONAL PLAN

“There is a funding goal that has to do with how we are going to finance this plan,” said Muhamad during the presentation of the NBSAP.

“This is a plan that is closely integrated with … objectives that have to do with security and the consolidation of peace, [these] strategies are not separated from general public policies, and are not separated as an environmental appendix.”

Resource mobilisation is one of the key objectives identified by the plan, along with integrating biodiversity into national planning, promoting sustainable production models, tackling environmental crimes, and enhancing governance.

Under the NBSAP, the government committed to protecting at least 34% of the national land and sea by 2030 from the current 24%, converting 3 mln hectares to sustainable production, and launching 32 cross-departmental programmes to support the bioeconomy uptake across the country.

The government expects that the bioeconomy will represent 3% of the national GDP by 2030, up from today’s 0.8%, and generate at least 500,000 jobs.

Overall, the NBSAP sets out 191 actions aimed at supporting its implementation, in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed at COP15 two years ago.

Implementing the plan will cost an estimated COP$76.5 bln, according to the government.

With Monday’s release, Colombia became just the 35th country to submit its NBSAP, though many other nations are expected to follow during the two-week COP16 summit.

By Sergio Colombo in Cali – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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