Outcomes of the resumed Nature COP16 talks

Late last week (27 February 2025) the resumed talks of the 16th UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP16) came to an end following a night of intense negotiations in Rome. These talks were intended to finalise many of the unfinished decisions from last year’s COP16 in Columbia, particularly those centred around finance, and how resources could be mobilised to achieve the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed to at COP15 in Kunming-Montreal.

The most tense negotiations were centred around creating a new, dedicated global biodiversity fund (specifically for delivering the goals of the GBF) to deliver a financial mechanism under the COP process that can provide developing countries with the means to meet their biodiversity goals. In a landmark agreement, countries agreed to set up a ‘permanent arrangement for the financial mechanism’ within the COP process by 2030. This will hopefully remove some of the barriers developing countries have faced when trying to access existing funds held in the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Although this agreement does not establish a new fund immediately, a permanent financial mechanism such as has been agreed to has been the goal of many developing countries and environmental organisations for many years, and heralds a big win for international progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis.

Crucially, the resumed talks in Rome also resulted in countries agreeing on a roadmap to deliver the COP15 headline agreement of generating $200bn a year in nature finance by 2030, funding that is essential to delivering effective nature restoration and halting the biodiversity crisis. Developed countries had previously agreed to deliver $20bn in international biodiversity finance by 2025, which so far, they have failed to meet. This new agreement looks to speed up the delivery of these financial resources from all sources by looking for new forms of financing, pushing development banks to spend on biodiversity, and, most importantly, establishing ‘international dialogue’ between ministers of finance and ministers of environment from developed and developing countries. The criteria for these mechanisms is due to be decided next year at COP17 in Armenia, with the aim of it coming into operation by COP19 in 2030.

Parties also managed to lay further groundwork for establishing how countries will be assessed on their progress towards achieving their GBF targets, by agreeing on the way in which indicators will be measured, and then used when submitting national reports. This will ensure that all countries are able to report their progress in a way that can be interpreted by international policy makers, providing a more global view of progress towards implementation of the GBF. Assessment of progress, and measuring how countries are doing relative to their targets is set to be the primary agenda item for COP17 in Armenia.

The success of these resumed COP16 talks has shown that there is still a strong consensus among nations to push forward progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis, and the importance of multilateral meetings to find compromise and lay the groundwork for real change.

Domestically, despite not getting much news coverage, the results of the resumed talks have been greeted positively with the Environmental Audit Committee Chair, Toby Perkins MP, saying:

“I am pleased to see that the Government has delivered on its Kunming-Montreal commitment to issue a UK national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP) for 2030, committing the UK, its Crown Dependencies and overseas territories to achieving to achieving all 23 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework targets set in 2022. Now we have the agreement, we need the action. I look forward to the Nature Minister [Mary Creagh MP] coming to the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity to set out in more detail how the UK expects to show leadership in this critically important area.”