Attendee s arrive for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, on October 29, 2024. At this year’s biodiversity talks, known as COP16, negotiators worked through a host of thorny issues, particularly how to finance ecosystem protection.
An EU negotiator said the bloc could not accept a new official development assistance fund “further fragmenting the biodiversity finance landscape. A new fund does not mean new funding.” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister and COP16 president, speaks during the conference in Cali on October 29, 2024. Photographer: Jair F. Coll/Bloomberg
Also still standing is the creation of a permanent body to include Indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making, which Leila Salazar-López, executive director of the nonprofit Amazon Watch, called a “historic victory.”