While the Trump administration in Washington cut its environmental programs, representatives from the United Nations Biodiversity Consultation in Rome made modest advances on a series of measures to support nature on Thursday.
Governments gathered to tackle the unprecedented loss of global biodiversity in human history, driven by the ways people have changed the world.
The geopolitical changes in the earthquake in recent weeks have come to talks as the country negotiates in large meeting rooms and fights for small steps towards consensus. While the UK announced cuts in overseas development aid and the US continued to cut its international aid programs, representatives negotiated hard-core language in the language of diplomatic texts.
“We sent a ray of hope,” said Susanna Muhammad, Colombia's Minister of Departure Environment. “The common interest – the environment, the protection of life, the ability to gather for something greater than the interests of each country.”
Many developing countries are rich in biodiversity, but economically poor, with three days of tense negotiations centred on whether they are part of a plan to mobilize $200 billion a year for natural funds by 2030.
Africa and Latin American countries are calling for new funds, claiming that the methods of gaining current access to multilateral money are unfair and inefficient. However, many donor countries are fighting the proposed funds, saying that setup and management is costly, and diverting money that could otherwise be spent on conservation itself. Ultimately, representatives agreed to a process of determining whether a new fund would be created. Still, it was a difficult compromise, and the room erupted with applause.
The representative also approved a framework to monitor national developments in Montreal on biodiversity commitments in 2022.
“We currently have a roadmap to ensure the finances needed to avoid the biodiversity crisis, and there are ways to monitor and review progress. “These critical steps must be backed up with actual money from developed countries.”
Countries recognize the annual biodiversity financing gap of $700 billion. The landmark agreement in 2022 agreed to mobilize at least $220 billion a year from public and private sources by 2030, and finding more $500 billion a year by eliminating or reforming subsidies that undermine nature. Even the most advantageous political situations are huge amounts to find in five years.
The consultation unfolded with the prominent absence of one country: the United States.
“I don't remember the last time the United States didn't appear, but it was a very long time,” said David Ainsworth, a spokesman for the Secretariat that governs the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, which is the basis of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity.
The United States has long played a troubling but influential role in global biodiversity negotiations. With the exception of the Vatican, which has not ratified the treaty, it is the only country in the world. Still, the United States has long been a major influence from the bystanders of the meeting.
Now everything is being questioned. In recent years, at least $385 million in US biodiversity funding has been concentrated through international development agencies and is being dismantled by the Trump administration. Other streams of US biodiversity funding are also at risk.
The White House did not answer questions about plans to raise biodiversity or why it did not send representatives to consultations.
Monica Medina, the Biden administration's special envoy for biodiversity, called the absence of Rome “a deafening silence” and said cuts in biodiversity funding could lead to catastrophic extinction.
“US funding was a very important part of how we kept some of the biodiversity we all love, elephants, whales, rhinoceros and polar bears from extinction,” Medina said. “We may not be able to keep some of these amazing animals for our children and grandchildren without some of this funding.”
The Rome meeting was the resumption of consultations held in Cali, Colombia last fall, called the 16th Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity, or COP16. After companies reached a groundbreaking agreement in overtime in a new way to compensate the state for their use of genetic material, the speech lost its quorum and was stopped.
According to stakeholders, one promising outcome of the Rome consultations was the move to launch an international dialogue between the Environment and Finance Ministers from developed and developing countries.
During the negotiations, some representatives made enthusiastic pleas for nature.
“Biodiversity cannot wait for an eternal bureaucratic process while the environmental crisis continues to worsen,” Bolivian government representative told countries gathered on Wednesday. “The forests are burning, the rivers are suffering, the animals are disappearing.”
