As delegates from nearly 200 countries continue negotiations in Montreal, Canada, in an effort to tackle the rapid decline of global biodiversity, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has urged participating nations at COP15 to set more ambitious goals to tackle the environmental crisis as it says a “lack of political will” is hindering the United Nations biodiversity conference.
This is coming after delegates from developing countries staged a late-night walkout of the UN conference on Tuesday after talks broke down with wealthier nations over the contentious funding issue and the nonprofit group Avaaz has now said it was due to developed nations’ unwillingness to compromise.
According to David Ainsworth, a spokesman for the UN Environment Programme, the atmosphere became raucous when the group started discussing concepts relating to the global biodiversity fund proposal which is a new fund sought by low-income nations to help them achieve their biodiversity objectives.
However, wealthier nations have opposed a call for them to provide at least $100bn annually, preferring instead to reform existing financing schemes.
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Late last month, Greenpeace urged richer countries to take on a fair share of the financial burden and help nations in the Global South – which are shouldering much of the biodiversity loss burden – protect areas at risk of destruction.
Similar debates over a so-called “loss and damage fund” dominated the recent COP27 climate talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
Meanwhile, Titze from WWF Germany warned on Wednesday that COP15 negotiations appeared to be on track to deliver targets that are lower than what was agreed to more than a decade ago by the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
“That is not the political signal we need,” he told reporters, adding that a “comprehensive” funding package that includes private-sector commitments is necessary to implement any targets, especially in developing countries immediately.
Speaking further, he said, “a lot of the biodiversity left on this planet is in their territories,”. “They need the support, and that needs to come through international financing.
Story was adapted from AlJazeera.
