On 29 October, during the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 16), high-level ministerial dialogues took place on financing biodiversity and implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Both events were organized by the COP 16 Presidency.
The dialogue on sustainable finance, international financial system reform, and the global responsibility to biodiversity addressed the need for: increased and direct funding from all sources; redirecting financial flows; identifying and reducing harmful subsidies; and innovative financial mechanisms.
Ricardo Bonilla González, Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Colombia, highlighted income, expenses, and debt as three finance-related challenges. He noted that countries rely on environmentally harmful resources, asking how alternative, stable income sources can be developed. On expenses, he pointed out that harmful activities and subsidies are often used to provide social goods. However, developing countries lack sufficient resources, leading them to seek international finance, which leads to debt. He said even green financing, despite lower interest rates, still results in debt, and transformational change should not rely on debt of countries that contribute the least to environmental problems.
Other speakers highlighted: the importance of including finance ministries in discussions on financing biodiversity conservation efforts; the need for innovative financial mechanisms, such as green bonds, biodiversity credits, and debt for nature swaps; and the need to address direct access to finance, especially for Indigenous Peoples.
Some ministers argued that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has too many responsibilities and that the GBF Fund is not enough to meet the Framework’s needs. They advocated for the creation of a dedicated global biodiversity fund and for a global benefit-sharing mechanism for digital sequence information (DSI).
During the second dialogue, ministers and Indigenous and community leaders addressed the need for urgent action for implementation of the GBF. They discussed: National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) as the main instrument for GBF implementation; opportunities and challenges faced in global biodiversity conservation; and the need for national targets and strategies and the adoption of a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach for global biodiversity conservation.
The event highlighted that almost all countries are developing their NBSAPs, with national targets aligning with the GBF. Ministers were asked to consider: political and technical strategies that have been undertaken by parties to ensure a cross-sectoral and whole-of-society approach in their NBSAP updates; political and capacity-building challenges at the national and local levels; and national institutional arrangements needed to help fulfil obligations, including reporting, under multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).
A representative of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) noted the development by IPLCs in the Philippines of their own Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, lamented inconsistent participation and a lack of direct resources for IPLCs to engage in the NBSAP process, and urged parties to approve the creation of a permanent IPLC subsidiary body under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Speakers also mentioned specific conservation actions, the devastating effects of war on biodiversity, and the need for better articulating the benefits of conserving biodiversity.
