MONTREAL & CALI, COLOMBIA — Greenpeace welcomes COP16’s establishment of a new body dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ rights, roles, territories and knowledge, progress on ocean protections, and on integration of biodiversity and climate action. But a last-minute and anti-climatic suspension of negotiations leaves disappointment about closing the finance gap.
An Lambrechts, Head of Greenpeace COP16 delegation said: “Governments in Cali put forward plans to protect nature but were unable to mobilise the money to actually do it. Biodiversity finance remains stalled after a deafening absence of credible finance pledges from wealthy governments and unprecedented corporate lobbying. But big pharma and big agribusiness failed to block a game-changing deal on corporate responsibility to pay up for nature protections. Nature is collapsing, and people all over the world should not have to continue paying the price.”
“Closing the finance gap was not merely some moral obligation but necessary to the protection of people and nature that grows more urgent each day. With one week to go until COP29 begins, the non-decision on a fund damages trust between Global South and North countries. The only way forward is protecting the ecosystems that sustain our lives and building the political bridge between biodiversity and climate action.”
Global governments, including Canada, must start acting much faster to implement the targets they committed to by signing the Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022 in Montreal, which include protecting at least 30% of land and seas by 2030 (30×30), upholding Indigenous rights and providing biodiversity financing. Although Canada has recently introduced the Nature Accountability Act (C-73), the bill doesn’t go far enough to ensure that Canada meets its international obligations to halt and reverse nature loss.
Salomé Sané, Nature, Oceans & Plastics Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada said:
“Two years after talking a good game by being one of the key architects of the landmark Kunming-Montreal agreement, Canada ended up missing the opportunity to live up to its nature protection commitments at COP16 in Colombia.
Nature is collapsing in plain sight and we can no longer afford any broken promises. We need the Canadian government to step up its game and show solidarity with those bearing the brunt of nature destruction by urgently passing an amended Nature Accountability Act that ensures transparency, accountability and justice for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Roughly 90,000 people in Canada have already signed our petition calling for a swift passage of this law, and are now waiting for the government to start acting on its promises before it becomes too late.”
ENDS
Note to editors:
Greenpeace Canada media backgrounder on the Nature Accountability Act is available here.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Dina Ni, Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Canada
dina.ni@greenpeace.org; +1 416 820-2148
Gaby Flores, Communications Coordinator, Greenpeace International, cflores@greenpeace.org, (+1) 214 454 3871
August Rick, Campaign Specialist, Greenpeace East Asia, (+57) 321 793 5619, arick@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace International Press Desk, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)
,Read More Greenpeace Canada
