Paying for nature: What to expect from COP16 in Colombia

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Governments that committed two years ago to a historic agreement to protect nature and biodiversity now will try to figure out how to actually carry that out.

Government officials, companies and nongovernmental organizations will meet this week in Cali, Colombia, for COP16 to attempt to hash out the details over how to stop losses of biodiversity, as habitat destruction and environmental degradation spread, and how to pay for potentially costly initiatives. “We have had a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of populations that we have studied over the last 50 years," said Lucia Ruiz Bustos, director of Conservation Areas, Earth for Life at environmental charity World Wildlife Fund, which has studied nature loss.

“That brings us to a very important conversation of tipping points—if we don’t take action right now we are in a watershed moment in which tipping points might result in devastating impacts, not only for nature but also for life as we know it," she said. The conference hosted by the United Nations will mark the first meeting since parties in 2022 struck the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—a landmark treaty which aims to halt the destruction of ecosystems and commit countries to improving diversity in the natural world, both within their own borders and globally.

Countries so far have been slow to commit to mechanisms for funding biodiversity efforts, which carry potentially high direct costs and may affect economic development. Questions over the cost the private sector should bear remain contentious.