UN biodiversity COP “enormous step,” combines climate and environment policies, says Germany

The UN biodiversity conference in the Colombian city of Cali achieved real progress by improving coordination between climate and environmental protection, according to Germany’s environment ministry. “In Cali, we have succeeded in taking an enormous step forward in protecting our natural environment,” said environment minister Steffi Lemke.

“With the resolution on biodiversity and the climate crisis, climate and nature conservation will be better interlinked in future through more cooperation at policy, planning and implementation level,” Lemke said, adding the conference paved the way for closer cooperation between the World Biodiversity Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Cali thus also sends a clear signal in favour of more natural climate protection to the upcoming World Climate Conference in Baku (COP29),” Lemke said.

However, Germany's cooperation and development state secretary, Jochen Flasbarth, said it was “regrettable” that the COP16 biodiversity summit ended without an agreement on a new nature conservation fund during its final session. But countries agreed on a new benefit-sharing mechanism for genetic resources, as well as a new permanent body for Indigenous peoples, which will allow them to advise and offer their view at biodiversity COPs directly for the first time.

“I am particularly pleased that the voice of indigenous peoples and local communities is being strengthened – because they play an extremely important role in global biodiversity conservation,” minister Lemke said.

Environmental NGO Greenpeace Germany said the biodiversity conference could not be considered a major success. While the inclusion of Indigenous peoples marked a "historic" decision in environmental protection, COP16 in Colombia had revealed glaring differences between industrialised countries and developping economies, said Greenpeace policy analyst Jannes Stoppel. "The otherwise positive conference ends on a bitter note of a mutual loss of trust," Stoppel said, arguing that the EU's blocking of a fund for biodiversity highlighted this rift.