By Jake Spring

CALI, Colombia (Reuters) – Rich nations appear to have reached a limit on how much they are willing to pay to conserve the world’s nature, instead shifting their focus at the two-week U.N. biodiversity summit toward discussions about private money filling the funding gap. .

At the COP16 negotiations in Cali, Colombia, countries failed to figure out how to mobilize $200 billion a year in conservation funds by 2030, of which $30 billion would come directly from rich countries.

This money, promised two years ago as part of the Kunming-Montreal global framework agreement on biodiversity, is intended to finance activities that strengthen nature, such as sustainable agriculture or patrolling wildlife reserves.

But there was no consensus as talks dragged on beyond the planned end of the summit on Friday, during which dozens of delegations left. At roll call Saturday morning, there was no quorum among the nearly 200 nations for a deal to pass, forcing organizers to abruptly suspend the meeting.

“I am both saddened and enraged by the lack of outcome from COP16,” said Shilps Gautam, chief executive of project finance company Opna.

“The crazy thing about the discussions about financing nature is that the figures mentioned are already derisory.”

Human activities such as agriculture, mining and urban development are increasingly putting nature in crisis, with an estimated one million plant and animal species at risk of extinction.

Climate change, a result of the burning of fossil fuels, also compounds nature’s woes by increasing temperatures and disrupting weather cycles.

Countries will meet again in Azerbaijan next week for the UN COP29 climate summit, which will once again focus on the urgent need for financing from rich countries to their poorer counterparts to help them meet the costs climatic.

LITTLE MONEY FROM RICH NATIONS

Even before the collapse of the negotiations, developed countries had signaled their reluctance to offer large sums of money.

European governments including Germany and the Netherlands have cut their foreign aid budgets over the past year, while France and the United Kingdom are also cutting them.

Government development money specifically for overseas nature conservation fell to $3.8 billion in 2022, from $4.6 billion in 2015, according to the Organization for Cooperation and Development. economic development.

At COP16, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded that countries make significant new contributions to the Global Biodiversity Framework.

The response was muted. Nations at COP16 pledged $163 million in contributions to the fund, bringing total contributions to around $400 million – far from a major contribution to the nations’ $30 billion by 2030 target.

The United States, which is not a party to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, did not contribute.

“Public money is already mobilized as much as possible,” Florika Fink-Hooijer, the European Union’s environment director-general, told reporters at the summit.

“We now have to look for other sources of funding.”

PRIVATE CASH

When it came to going after private capital, delegates at the COP16 summit agreed on a plan to charge pharmaceutical companies and others for their use of genetic information in research and development of new commercial products.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca and Sanofi did not respond to requests for comment on the deal.

Experts estimate the plan could generate about $1 billion a year.

That still doesn’t cover the billions needed to stop the collapse of ecosystems, like the Amazon rainforest or coral reefs. The world will need to find ways to attract private investment in nature-friendly projects, said Marcos Neto, director of global policy at the United Nations Development Program.

Some tools include green bonds or debt-for-nature swaps, through which countries refinance their debt at lower interest rates in order to direct the savings toward conservation. The World Economic Forum estimates that debt-for-nature swaps could generate $100 billion in financing for nature.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Additional reporting by Simon Jessop and Oliver Griffin; editing by Katy Daigle and Diane Craft)