UN biodiversity talks: Is the world at a tipping point?

Biodiversity — or the variety of all living things on Earth — is collapsing. That's because humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink through burning fossil fuels, intensive farming, urbanization and pollution.

In the past 50 years, populations of vertebrates have plummeted 73%, according to a recent report by conservation group WWF, while scientists estimate about a million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, some in the coming decades.

But the diversity of interconnected living organisms is the foundation of healthy ecosystems, and the loss of even one species can upset the intricate balance.

To address these challenges, two years ago nearly 200 nations signed what was called at the time a "landmark" UN biodiversity deal to safeguard nature.

Now, over the next two weeks, thousands of policymakers, business leaders and civil society groups will gather in the Colombian city of Cali to track the deal's progress and tackle sticky issues like financing. 

It's a crucial task because a decline in biodiversity also threatens the social and economic well-being of billions of people, say experts.

"If we don't protect our nature, we are actually undermining our economies, we are undermining our agriculture, and we will not be able in future to feed a population of 10 billion people on this planet," Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, told DW.

Slow progress on national biodiversity plans 

Leaders at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference laid out ambitious goals to protect 30% of land and sea areas by the end of the decade — up from 17% of land and nearly 8% of oceans. The deal, which is to biodiversity what the Paris Agreement is to climate, also aims to restore 30% of degraded areas.

"It was already very difficult to agree on this, but the challenge lies ahead — because now, states have to implement what they agreed on," said Florian Titze, an international policy analyst at WWF in Germany.

To help track progress and ensure countries are implementing agreed targets, governments were required to submit updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) ahead of the Cali biodiversity summit. To date, only 34 out of 196 countries have done so. Germany is among those to have missed the deadline.

"Countries like Germany aren't feeling the pressure to submit their plans ..., because other countries haven't done so either," Titze told DW. "We only have another five years left until 2030. If the implementation of promises doesn't start now, we will likely miss the targets for 2030."

A new study found that 8.2% of oceans are now protected — a 0.5% increase since the 2022 biodiversity agreement. It also suggests that just 2.8% of that is effectively protected, calling the "gap between pledge and action vast."

What's holding back progress on implementing biodiversity plans? 

This year's conference is expected to address the obstacles to updating and implementing action plans.

"What is often holding us back is a discussion with other sectors that feel that environmental policy is encroaching on them negatively on them or is problematic for competitiveness," said UN biodiversity chief Schomaker. 

For instance, when the German government announced in 2023 it was going to abolish "environmentally harmful" tax breaks for diesel fuel, farmers took to the streets in their thousands to protest what they saw as a threat to their livelihoods.

The government postponed a full phaseout until 2026, although the UN's biodiversity deal aims to progressively reduce subsidies harmful to nature by $500 billion (€461 billion) a year by 2030.

"We are accelerating positive biodiversity spending, but it is still vastly outnumbered or outspent by subsidies that are negative for biodiversity and that's a key issue for us to attack," said Schomaker.

Who will pay for nature protection?

Who foots the bills for biodiversity spending will be up for discussion at Cali. At the last summit, developed countries pledged to raise $25 billion annually by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030 in financial aid for low-income countries to protect their nature.

But a recent report found only two countries — Norway and Sweden — had paid their fair share toward the target. Some 23 out of 28 countries analyzed "are paying less than half of what they pledged."

In a press conference ahead of the summit, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad called for developed countries to increase what they'd pledged "as we need to give a signal that the commitments that were agreed on ... are going on track."

Countries also agreed to earmark $200 billion a year for safeguarding biodiversity by 2030 through public and private sources, with negotiators expected to talk about how the huge sum will be raised in time.

WWF's Titze hopes policymakers will agree on some aspects of their financing strategy. In a best-case scenario, this would include ways to distribute money to low-income countries, how to deal with subsidies harmful to biodiversity and the role of private sector financing.

"The question is how effective it will be? Can countries commit to concrete measures?" said Titze. 

Finding financial solutions

Funding solutions that balance nature conservation with economic needs are on the agenda, said Schomaker. 

Biodiversity credits are one tool being mooted. These schemes in theory would allow companies to offset environmental damage by buying credits from organizations or projects that safeguard or restore nature. Advocates say monetizing nature in this way would incentivize protection, while critics have said credits are a tool that invites greenwashing.

Also on the table are debt-for-nature-swaps, which entail relieving a country's debt in exchange for investment in conservation. 

Another major discussion will center around the use of genetic data from nature and income that derives from that use — like in the pharmaceutical sector, where DNA sequencing of plants to produce medication can lead to multibillion-dollar profits.

Delegates will discuss fairly compensating countries with a lot of biodiversity — which are also frequently low-income — for the use of their genetic resources, as well as Indigenous communities who often preserve these species. That money could be channeled into protecting habitats. 

While financial incentives can help, experts warn they must be paired with concrete action and political will to make lasting change. 

"If we lose ecosystems and a tolerable climate, then human life as we know it will no longer be possible on this planet," said Titze. "We are talking about preserving our own civilization. There is little that could be more important."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins

This article was updated to reflect the change in NBSAPs.