ENVIRONMENT
Brazil spearheaded a last-ditch effort to break the deadlock at UN nature talks in Rome on Thursday, as nations struggled against the clock to agree a deal over money to halt rapid global species loss.
Rich and developing countries broadly agree over the scale of the crisis that threatens the ecosystems and wildlife that humans rely on for food, climate regulation and economic prosperity.
But they are locked in a dispute over how to deliver funding, which caused a previous meeting in Cali, Colombia last year to end in disarray.
The rebooted COP16 talks in Rome are tasked with bridging those differences, against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions and global economic concerns.
In a bid to unlock agreement on what should be the final day of talks, Brazil put forward a new “compromise attempt” text on behalf of the BRICS country bloc that includes Russia, China and India.
COP16 president Susana Muhamad told negotiators in a plenary Thursday morning that the talks were in their “end game”.
She warned that progress on ambitious targets to protect nature by 2030 was on the line, urging nations to show “that collectively we can mobilise this change to safeguard biodiversity, which is life”.
In a landmark 2022 agreement, countries agreed to halt the destruction of nature by the end of this decade.
Countries have already agreed to deliver $200 billion a year in finance for nature by 2030, including $30 billion a year from wealthier countries to poorer ones.
The total for 2022 was about $15 billion, according to the OECD.
The main debate is over developing countries’ demand for the creation of a specific biodiversity fund.
Wealthy nations — including the European Union and Canada — are opposed, arguing that setting up multiple funds fragments development aid, which is already under pressure from budget cuts and the slashing of overseas aid by new US President Donald Trump.
There were signs that countries were inching closer together, with the European Union’s representative saying they were “cautiously positive” about the BRICS proposal, although tough negotiations are expected to stretch well into the evening. — AFP
