News Desk
MONTREAL: Dozens of countries led by Brazil at the United Nations biodiversity talks have demanded financial subsidies to the tune of at least $100 billion annually until 2030, or one percent of global GDP, to protect ecosystems.
The thorny issue of how much money wealthy countries are willing to pay to protect the world’s remaining biodiversity became a key agenda of debate at the UN talks in Montreal to create a “peace pact with nature.” With financial flows from the Global North to South for biodiversity currently estimated at around $10 billion a year, Wealthy nations have instead proposed reforming existing financial mechanisms and leveraging more private sector funding.
Montreal climate summit
The environment ministers of the 196 members are attending the high-level negotiations at the Montreal summit, called COP15, being held from December 7-19.
The talks are aimed at the fulfillment of 20 targets, including a keystone pledge to safeguard 30 percent of the world’s land and seas by 2030, eradicating harmful fishing and agriculture subsidies, tackling invasive species, and reducing pesticides. But the summit has not garnered the same level of attention as the UN COP27 held in Egypt in November, which was attended by over a hundred world leaders.
The summit is underway amid a biodiversity crisis that has brought an estimated million species at the brink of extinction and degraded a third of the world’s landmass.
