COP15: Day one addresses need to close biodiversity ‘finance gap’

UN Secretary General António Guterres has spoken of the need for national biodiversity finance plans to “help close the finance gap”, in remarks made at the opening day of the COP15 biodiversity conference.

The event is being presided over by China, yet being hosted in Montreal, Canada, after being moved from Kunming due to concerns and delays over Covid-19. The ultimate goal of the two weeks of discussions is for the nations present to adopt an updated and improved global biodiversity framework.

Addressing delegates, Guterres said: “Governments must develop bold national action plans across all ministries, from finance and food, to energy and infrastructure.

“Plans that re-purpose subsidies and tax breaks away from nature-destroying activities towards green solutions like renewable energy, plastic reduction, nature-friendly food production and sustainable resource extraction.”

The statement by Guterres on such plans links to similar initiatives to be discussed by regional bodies at the conference, such as the EU law that would ban imports in key sectors (such as coffee, beef and rubber) if causing deforestation. There is also the ongoing EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which aims to protect 30% of EU land and sea by 2030.

Guterres said: “We need businesses and investors to put protection first in their business plans, and invest in sustainable production and extraction methods across every link of their supply chains.”

At the opening plenary session, Gwen Sisiar, the representative for Palau speaking for 13 Pacific island nations threatened by climate change, spoke of a growing need to provide innovative finance to accelerate resource mobilisation and effective utilisation of funds, and that the Asia Pacific is home to communities and ecosystems with unique vulnerabilities with regard to biodiversity loss.

Of the wider discussions, Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, spoke of the need for a framework that “addresses harmful subsidies, misdirected investment and unsustainable consumption and production, which are the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss and framework, and that recognises and protects the rights of indigenous people and local communities.”

Virginijus Sinkevicius, the leader of the EU delegation to COP15, also noted its commitment to double its international biodiversity funding to $1.1bn annually, with further details on the pledge expected to be delivered by the end of the conference.

The bloc’s move to condemn the war in Ukraine in its opening address was met with rebuke by the representative for the Russian Federation, which accused the EU of “unnecessarily politicising” the COP15 event.

Too little, too late solutions

Within his speech, Guterres spoke of the conference as an opportunity to stop the “orgy of destruction” being committed by humans on the wider natural world. Andersen spoke of “the five horsemen of the nature apocalypse”: changing land and sea use, over exploitation of species, climate change, pollution, and invasive species.

The speech that saw the most positive reception at the opening plenary came from Josefa Tauli, the speaker for the youth wing’s delegation, who said: “For too long we have been fed the same greenwashing, the same broken promises, the same too little, too late solutions, the same old excuses, the same injustice as we still see in current global biodiversity framework. We remind you, if we keep doing things the same way we are going to fail.”