The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) summit dubbed “Peace with Nature” conference which were suspended in Cali, Colombia early last month, will resume in February in Rome, Italy.

Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) on Wednesday last week agreed to reconvene from 25-27 February 2025 at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to seek consensus on Cali’s important, yet unfinished, business.

Member states will resume negotiations on resource mobilisation, financial mechanisms and the KMGBF (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework) monitoring and planning.

They will also resume sessions for COP16 and the current meetings of the protocols to address agenda items left unresolved following suspension of the Cali meeting due to loss of quorum in the early hours of 2 November.

“In the weeks to come and during our meeting in Rome in February, I will work alongside parties to build the trust and consensus needed to achieve Peace with Nature, ensuring that the goals and targets of the KMBGF translate into tangible action,” said COP16 President and Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad.

CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker echoed her comments, appreciating the strong results achieved so far, underpinned by a spirit of compromise and dialogue.

“Today’s swift agreement to conclude our discussions in early 2025 reflects the determination to maintain momentum and ensure the successful implementation of the KMBGF,” she said.

Unresolved issues
The talks in Cali lost quorum and were suspended. Certain agenda items, including the contentious one on how to mobilise and distribute $200 billion a year by 2030, a target set at the previous talks in Montreal, remained unresolved.

Delegates at the UN talks in Cali created a system that would compensate countries for the use of genetic information but failed to make headway on a broader funding commitment.

The key issues for the resumed discussions will include a new resource mobilisation strategy aimed at securing $200 billion annually by 2030 for biodiversity initiatives and reducing harmful incentives by at least $500 billion, per year, by 2030.

CBD member-states will also explore the potential establishment of a global financing instrument for biodiversity, designed to mobilise and distribute funding effectively.

Currently funding comes from bilateral arrangements, private and philanthropic sources, and dedicated funds such as the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), including its Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) and the Kunming Biodiversity Fund (KBF).

The Rome meeting is expected to endorse the achievements of the GEF, encourage further contributions to the GBFF, and provide additional guidance to the GEF in light of its upcoming replenishment negotiations.

They will also finalise tools for parties to measure progress against the monitoring framework for the KMBGF’s 23 targets. Decisions will determine how progress toward KMGBF implementation will be reviewed at COP17.

Parties will consider incorporating commitments from non-state actors including youth, women, indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society and the private sector.
Also on the agenda is the finalisation of the national reporting template, which includes headline indicators.

Grounds covered
COP16 in Cali, Colombia was the largest meeting ever under the CBD, with over 23,000 participants in hundreds of parallel events over the two-week period that included summits on nature and culture, cities and sub-national authorities, business and finance, education, health, trade, restoration and protected areas.

Before COP16 was suspended, the conference achieved ground-breaking agreements on global biodiversity protections and implementation of the KMBGF.

Significant agreements from COP16 included decisions on health and biodiversity, invasive alien species, risk assessment of genetically modified organisms, such as mosquitoes, and guidance on ecologically and biologically significant marine areas beyond national jurisdictions.

Governments agreed to establish the ‘Cali Fund’ for industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and agriculture, those benefiting from digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, to share benefits with developing countries, indigenous peoples and local communities.

In another key decision, member-states recognised the contributions of people of African descent, particularly those maintaining traditional lifestyles, such as the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania, in conserving and sustainably using biodiversity.