After the Cop16 conference on biodiversity held in Cali, in Colombia in November 2024, the unaddressed funding issues call for concern in the conservation of DRC’s tropical forests. Related discussions have been postponed to February 2025.
Despite calls made during talks on biodiversity at the COP16 which was held from October 21 to November 16, 2024, in Cali, Colombia, for a greater mobilisation in the preservation of these forests, core to the earth’s equilibrium, the DRC is worried about the funding aspect. This is due to failure to reach agreement on the financial roadmap aimed at stimulating humanity’s timid efforts to stop nature's destruction by 2030. The official closing of works is postponed to February 2025 in Rome as announced by the David Ainsworth, spokesperson of the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD). The 196 member states of the United Nations Conference on Biological Biodiversity of which DRC, parted ways on November 2nd without meeting the objective of their gathering aimed at determining necessary financial actions for the implementation of the global framework for biodiversity signed in 2015 during the COP15.
After many intense and heated discussions that extended to November 2nd, in the morning, delegates present at the conference finally addressed the most sensitive topic of their discussions which was the mobilisation of 200 billion dollars by 2030 for the protection and restoration of nature. This ambitious objective includes a contribution of an annual 30 billion dollar aid from rich northern countries.
As a matter of fact, most of the countries hosting a big biodiversity are found in the southern countries with a good number of them classified among developing countries. The Democratic Republic of Congo is second in this classification followed by the Amazonian region. These nations who are the first to feel the effect of the biodiversity crises should equally face the consequences of consumption modes of Northern countries.
In an attempt to reduce the imbalance, signatory State of the Convention of Biological Biodiversity committed in 2022 to the ambitious goal of mobilising 200 billion dollars yearly by 2030. Concerning a dedicated fund, developed countries promised to contribute an amount of 20 billion dollars yearly by 2025 and to later increase their contribution to 30 billion dollars by 2030. These funds should be specifically allocated to local projects carried by developing countries. Meanwhile, the financial contributions are far from expectations. In September, promise was made for only 400 billion dollars including 244 billion from Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Luxembourg and mainly Canada, host of the COP15.
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