The president of the 16e global conference on biodiversity (COP16), Susana Muhamad, had promised that the end of this meeting would be “thrilling”. The Colombian Minister of the Environment was partly right: the final stretch of the negotiations was marked by moments of tension and clashes, but also by applause and cries of joy, testifying to significant progress.
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Above all, this end was particularly abrupt: the plenary session was abruptly interrupted on Saturday, November 2 in the morning, after the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) noted that the quorum was no longer reached. Some of the representatives from some 200 countries had to leave Cali the day after the official end of the conference. “I am the last representative of my delegation”launched the Panama spokesperson.
Presented as the “Implementation COP”supposed to ensure that the promises of States in favor of nature come to fruition on the ground, COP16 ends without a decision on two of the most crucial issues of the negotiations: neither the question of the mobilization of financial resources nor that of global framework for monitoring and evaluating progress could not be discussed.
“If decisions have not been adopted, it is because there is still not enough trust and understanding between States, explained Susana Muhamad just after suspending the COP with a hammer blow. But on the other hand, there were other very difficult decisions, on marine areas, genetic resources or indigenous peoples, and the countries managed to make them. » “This end of COP has a taste of unfinished business, regretted, for his part, Moumouni Ouedraogo, the representative of Burkina Faso. Even though there has been notable progress, we leave with the feeling of not having completed our work. »
“We have a plan”
Two years after the adoption of unprecedented commitments at COP15 in Montreal (Canada) to fight against the collapse of life, such as the protection of 30% of land and seas or halving the risks linked to pesticides , COP16 should make it possible to accelerate efforts. From Cali, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, recalled to what extent the collapse of biodiversity constitutes a “existential crisis”.
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