Countries form nature coalition at UN COP16 talks

At the UN COP16 biodiversity talks on Tuesday, Colombia launched a coalition with 20 other countries seeking to make “peace with nature”. Leaders warned that the rapid destruction of the environment could lead to the extinction of humanity.

The summit, which will be attended by nearly 200 countries in the mountain-surrounded city of Cali, will be tasked with finding out how to stop the decline of nature by 2030, at a time when humans are causing habitat loss, climate change, pollution and other activities that destroy biodiversity.

The coalition includes countries from four continents, including Mexico, Sweden, Uganda and Chile, but none from the Asia-Pacific.

The coalition is open to countries that accept a set of principles aimed at changing humanity’s relationship with nature and living in harmony with the environment.

This includes directing money towards conservation and sustainable development, international cooperation and mobilizing the whole society to protect nature.

At the opening of the COP16 meeting with six presidents and more than 100 government ministers on Tuesday, leaders warned that humanity was killing itself by destroying nature.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, “We are beginning an era in which humanity disappears. I do not think I am exaggerating.” he said.

Petro stated that the world cannot wait for it to be profitable to save nature and that the market will not save people, adding that the value of life should be kept above money.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, “Nature is life. But we are still fighting against it. It is a war where there can be no winners.” “This is what an existential crisis looks like.”

Leaders said COP16 could be a turning point for conservation as the summit aims to implement 23 targets to halt nature loss by 2030 set out in the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Soil.

As of Tuesday, countries were far from reaching an agreement on how to advance the broad agenda and were at an impasse on how to increase financing. A handful of countries have announced new commitments of millions of dollars to a global fund for biodiversity, but observers said this fell far short of the billions of dollars needed.

“We can change today,” Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said. “I want to believe that we can change and that the world will not end.”