Saving Nature: Global Finance Strategy Targets $700B Funding Gap

Governments across the world have signed the first global biodiversity finance agreement to foot the bill for the $700 billion conservation finance shortfall annually. The agreement, reached in resumed COP16 negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, sets the stage for financing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The strategy is to increase finance for biodiversity, phase out environmentally harmful subsidies, and increase finance instruments for conservation. It has firm financial targets, which include doubling biodiversity-associated financial flows to developing nations to a minimum of $20 billion annually by the year 2025 and $30 billion by the year 2030. The strategy also seeks to mobilize $200 billion per year from public and private finances and phase out $500 billion of harmful subsidies to biodiversity.

This action is bound to have impacts on upcoming international environmental talks, including the 2025 United Nations Conference of the Parties in Brazil on global warming and world talks on an agreement on ending plastic pollution. It also has long-term effects on banks and other financial institutions, affirming the need for investment alignment with biodiversity goals and the incorporation of environment into economic decisions.

Private Finance for Biodiversity Conservation:-
The strategy focuses on the central position of the private sector in securing finance for action on biodiversity. Financial institutions and banks are encouraged to accelerate nature-positive investments, integrate biodiversity risks into their strategies, and enhance environmental impact reporting transparency. The strategy also calls for greater environmental and social protections, more investments in biodiversity, and more disclosures of biodiversity-related risks and dependencies.

United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative can potentially guide financial institutions in implementing these practices through reporting models and impact investment standards. The approach is also in favor of establishing the Cali Fund for Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from Digital Sequence Information. Through this initiative, private actors utilizing genetic information will be compelled to divert some of their revenues back into conservation efforts.

A Step Ahead Towards World Biodiversity Conservation:-
This adoption of such a framework of biodiversity finance is a huge step towards global conservation. With clearly defined financial goals and the involvement of the private sector, the framework aims to develop long-term solutions to loss of biodiversity. With more international attention being given to sustainability, governments and financial institutions will be forced to put their heads together and ensure there is sufficient implementation and mobilization of resources for environmental conservation.

As the world's biodiversity policies remain under discussion, the strategy serves as a basis for bringing the financial systems and environmental sustainability in alignment towards fulfilling the assurance of sustaining the biodiversity for future generations.

Source: Original report from UNEP on the global biodiversity finance strategy.