COP16 host Colombia pushes for joint climate and biodiversity pledges By Reuters
By Jake Spring and Oliver Griffin
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Colombia wants to write a joint pledge for climate and biodiversity, seeking to combine efforts to protect the environment and those to deal with climate change in the United Nations negotiations, Colombia’s Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told Reuters on Friday.
The South American nation later this month will host the UN COP16 conference on biodiversity aimed at stopping the rapid destruction of the environment, where Muhammad will serve as the president of the conference.
The United Nations currently has three environmental agreements – one each on climate change, biodiversity, and desertification – and negotiations and pledges are made separately on each issue.
That’s a difficult system in under-resourced developing countries, where it might be easier to use one integrated system, he said.
“If you repeat the same thing in three conferences, I think we are wasting time and maybe losing the opportunity to meet,” he said.
Those synergies include stopping deforestation, which destroys biodiversity and is a major source of emissions in many Latin American countries, he said.
Colombia may introduce such a program before COP30, the UN climate conference that Brazil will host in 2025, he said.
“We will send to the three conferences a consolidation program that combines these three conferences in a unified way because they are actually very related,” he said.
Panama proposed the idea of joint pledges and plans at a meeting of Latin American environmental ministers in Rio de Janeiro last month, with two other countries strongly supporting the idea, said Muhammad. He declined to specify the countries.
The 40 billion dollar investment portfolio announced by Colombia last week will not only help the energy transition away from fossil fuels but also protect the environment, he said.
Colombia reiterated that human rights should be at the heart of the environmental agenda and will establish an alliance for peace and environment at COP16.
“We really think that taking care of nature, reconnecting with nature and conservation together among different peoples is peace building and will enable us to withstand the changing climate conditions that will create a wider climate of conflict,” he said.
