At the COP15 biodiversity summit in Canada in December 2022, more than 190 countries agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a deal including targets such as nations protecting and restoring 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030. To ensure that all countries — particularly low- and middle-income nations (LMICs) — can meet these targets, those that signed the deal agreed to establish a trust fund by the end of this year and that, by 2030, wealthy nations should collectively be contributing US$30 billion per year. Disputes have re-emerged, however, on whether the trust fund should be independent or should be established under the auspices of the Global Environment Facility. Because LMICs don’t have an adequate say in how the GEF funds are spent, LMICs want the trust fund to be established as an independent fund.

These tensions could delay the trust fund’s adoption, which was planned for a GEF assembly in August 2023, delaying biodiversity action even more … Meanwhile, the clock is ticking: researchers have estimated that one million species are under threat of habitat loss because of factors such as climate change and agriculture.

Excerpts from Battles over Funding Could Threaten Historic Effort to Save Species, Nature, June 20, 2023