Financial targets agreed to by developed countries in Nagoya were to be determined at CoP 11 in Hyderabad
While the eleventh Convention on Biodiversity is going to be concluded in Hyderabad in a few hours, it is almost clear that there will not be any concrete decision on financial mobilisation for achieving the objectives of CBD, and the industrialised countries will get their way for postponement of setting the financial target till the next Conference of Parties (CoP) in 2014.
In view of the situation, the G 77 group of developing countries and China have expressed their displeasure and disappointment regarding the reluctance of industrialised countries to meet their commitments on financial resources. They have issued a common statement pointing out that if the CoP 11 failed to arrive at a consensus on financial mobilisation, the implementation of the Strategic Plan and the Aichi Targets would not possible.
In 2002, the Parties had formulated a target which said that the developed countries should transfer new and additional financial resources to developing countries for effective implementation of the objectives of CBD. By 2010, it became obvious that this target had not been achieved globally and that even though there has been modest increase in the official development assistance (ODA) of the developed countries related to biodiversity, financial resources continue to be grossly insufficient.
It was then that the CoP 10 in Nagoya set out to make an ambitious effort for a Nagoya Package with three major components: one, finalise the Nagoya Protocol on Access-Benefit Sharing ; two, compose and adopt a new Strategic Plan for 2011-2020; and three, complement this with an adequate strategy for resource mobilisation.
“The developing countries engaged in this process in good faith and made significant commitments. We concluded the first two components of the package in Nagoya in the expectation that there would be provision of financial resources by developed countries for the achievement of the targets. As we know, it was unfortunate that there were no financial targets agreed to by developed countries in Nagoya. As a result it was agreed that the targets would be determined at CoP 11 in Hyderabad,” says the statement issued by G 77 countries and China.
What happens to Aichi Targets?
But at CoP 11, the developed countries have not been forthcoming on this important issue. If this issue is not addressed right now, then the gains of Nagoya will be lost and CBD will lose the momentum towards working to realise the Aichi Targets, points out the statement.
“This will also mean that we would have effectively lost four years till at least 2014 and dissipate momentum. This is certainly not a situation that we would like to come to pass. We hope this is also not the intention of our developed country partners. We will be in the critical position of repeating history when we did not achieve the 2010 targets,” says the statement.
The statement further says that in order to move the process forward, developing countries have made a major concession to agree to interim targets based on tentative baselines. “We expect in return the developed country partners would reciprocate our compromise by agreeing to specific targets and commitments while at the same time working on a roadmap that would fix time line for adoption of the final financial targets.
Failure to achieve a sufficient target here would effectively mean the suspension of the implementation of the Aichi Targets until such time sufficient resources are available. This is not an option we would like to pursue. We recognise the need for significant mobilization of resources from developed countries for this realization,” says the statement.
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