COP16 Delivers on Indigenous Peoples, Digital Sequencing, But Fails on Finance — Global Issues

by Stella Paul (cali, columbia)Sunday, November 03, 2024Inter Press Service

A Watershed Second for IPLC

On Saturday night time, after hours of last-minute negotiations at a number of closed-door conferences amongst events, COP negotiators agreed to create a everlasting subsidiary physique underneath Article 8j of the Kunming-Montreal International Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) that might enable indigenous and native communities (IPLCs) direct participation within the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal International Biodiversity Framework. As reported by IPS beforehand, article 8j had been the topic of one of the crucial intense negotiations within the COP, with hundreds of indigenous activists demanding it whereas additionally drawing opposition from just a few international locations, together with Indonesia and Russia.

Nevertheless, after a number of rounds of conferences facilitated by the COP16 host Colombia, the warring international locations had been lastly delivered to a consensus and the proposal to determine a everlasting subsidiary physique within the CBP on IPLCs was lastly adopted unanimously.  Additionally, for the primary time within the historical past of the CBD COP, indigenous peoples of African descent in Colombia had been acknowledged for his or her position in biodiversity conservation, paving the best way for them to take part in all processes associated to IPLCs underneath COP and KMGBF.

“It is a watershed second within the historical past of multilateral environmental agreements,” stated Jennifer Corpuz, chief of the Worldwide Indigenous Discussion board on Biodiversity (IIFB), an umbrella group of Indigenous Peoples and native communities from 7 international areas organized across the Conference on Organic Variety (CBD) to coordinate indigenous methods on biodiversity.

Corpuz, who had spearheaded the IIFB negotiations on 8J all by way of the COP, additional stated that institution of the Everlasting Subsidiary Physique on Article 8(j) wouldn’t solely allow robust partnerships between governments, Indigenous Peoples and native communities and funders but additionally present a high-level platform to additional spotlight the contributions of IPs and LCs to safety of the planet and share learnings.

Presently, the IPLC-related discussions are held underneath an open-ended Working Group. The selections of this group should not binding and there’s no mandate on how usually this group ought to meet. Nevertheless, after the subsidiary physique’s creation, this working group is not wanted and will be disbanded. Corpuz revealed that Colombia is most definitely to be the host of the primary subsidiary physique assembly, anticipated to happen in a few yr from now—round October or November 2025.

Hopes Raised by a New DSI Fund

Settlement on a brand new, multilateral framework on Digital Sequencing Info (DSI) was additionally reached at COP16 on Saturday.

The framework—to be referred to as the CaliFund—will channel funding and deal with how the advantages derived from the usage of genetic knowledge, significantly in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and agricultural corporations, must be shared with the international locations, indigenous communities and stakeholders that present these assets. The adopted textual content on this contains robust language similar to corporations ought to pay slightly than being inspired to and specifies that fifty % of the cash coming to the DSI fund can be straight going to Indigenous Peoples and native communities.

Nevertheless, no choices had been taken on the precise proportion of the income that the businesses must pay and who can be the opposite stakeholders eligible to entry the fund.

Nationwide Biodiversity Motion Plans

In a pre-COP interview to IPS, Astrid Schomaker, Government Secretary of the UNCBD, stated that every one events had been anticipated to submit their revised Nationwide Biodiversity Technique and Motion Plan (NBSAP) at COP16. Nevertheless, on the ultimate day of the COP, solely 44 international locations had submitted their NBSAPs. The lengthy record of nations that didn’t submit contains the UK and Brazil.

On the launch occasion of their NBSAP, Indian Minister of State for Atmosphere, Kirti Vardhan Singh, stated that India was prepared to assist others, particularly the neighboring international locations, to develop and submit their very own NBSAPs.

“We do consider in neighbors first coverage and the coverage of ‘one earth, one household’ and are all the time able to share our experience with the neighbors; nonetheless, the request should come from their aspect, Singh informed IPS.

Gender: A Free Software to Measure Progress

Gender mainstreaming—the main target of KMGBF’s Article 23 was not on the principle agenda of COP16, and events didn’t have a mandate to debate their plans on implementing it.

Nevertheless, Women4Biodiversity—the group that represents all NGOs engaged on biodiversity and girls—introduced on October 31 that they’d co-developed with UNEP-WCMC an indicator for the international locations to undertake and use to implement goal 23 of the KMGBF.

Explaining additional, Mrinalini Rai, head of Women4Biodiversity, stated that the indicator features a questionnaire with a number of alternative solutions. Questions are organized underneath the three anticipated outcomes from the Gender Plan of Motion and the wording carefully corresponds to the indicative actions within the Gender Plan of Motion. Every reply falls underneath a class representing the extent of progress. Solutions are then aggregated and summarized as a quantitative measure (index) to offer a measure of progress over time

All international locations that signed the KMGBF should report on the progress of its implementation in 2026, when the Biodiversity International Stocktake will happen. The indicator may particularly assist Events to arrange for that reporting since it’s developed to trace and report on their actions in direction of guaranteeing the gender-responsive implementation of the KMGB.

“We now have taken a very long time and invested a number of efforts to co-develop this system. We even have held in depth consultations with a number of international locations and 19 of them held a take a look at run of the indicator. They then shared their suggestions, and we revised the indicator primarily based on that. So, it is a tried and examined device that any nation can use,” Rai stated.

Finance and Monitoring and a Suspended COP

Whereas a few new monetary contributions had been pledged to the International Biodiversity Framework Fund throughout the COP, USD 51.7 million by personal donors and USD 163 million by 12 donor international locations, the goal of elevating USD 20 billion by a yr remained a objective as distant as ever.

On Saturday night time, there was a transparent divide between the growing and the developed international locations, primarily the European Union. The growing international locations demanded that the COP undertake a plan for assembly the USD 20 billion by 2025 and maintain donors to account. They argued that this was essential for them, as the vast majority of the international locations within the international south couldn’t begin implementing their biodiversity motion plans with out cash. Nevertheless, this was vehemently opposed by EU delegates who didn’t need the official doc to incorporate any language associated to accountability.

The north-south divide additionally turned distinguished when African international locations complained that their issues and voices had been being sidelined on the essential difficulty of the monitoring framework.

Talking on behalf of the African Union, the delegate from Namibia alleged that the COP had did not seek the advice of African events in growing indicators for implementation of the KMGBF: “We want to put it on file that all through the contact teams and past, we now have signaled our willingness to interact in discussions and discover convergence; nonetheless, Africa was not knowledgeable nor invited to the dialogue on a compromise that was offered within the CG however that by no means thought-about the African group’s place with its 55 international locations.”

As each teams refused to maneuver from their positions and a few events additionally spoke with out following the process of the UN course of, the COP presidency lastly introduced that the convention was being suspended for now.

Melissa Wright, of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which had beforehand pledged to donate USD 20 million to preserve marine biodiversity, stated the impasse was “deeply regarding.”

“It’s deeply regarding that consensus was not reached on key points, together with finance. The clock is ticking.”

Nevertheless, Susana Muhamad, the president of COP16, known as the convention a hit.

“COP16 has been a transformative occasion,” stated Muhamad whereas admitting that disagreements on the monetary technique and the monitoring framework remained a future problem. “

This leaves some challenges for the Conference, and it’s time to begin addressing them, however the dialogue there was all the time very polarized and continued to be so,” she stated.

COP17: Armenia Wins

On October 31, delegates voted for Armenia to host the following biodiversity COP (COP17). Armenia and Azerbaijan had been the 2 contenders and throughout the voting, Armenia obtained 65 votes out of 123 forged in a secret poll, whereas 58 had been forged in favor of Azerbaijan, Muhamad introduced.
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