At COP15 in Montreal
today, the
international donor community came together and committed
billions of dollars to support the protection and restoration of
the natural world.
The commitment, announced
through the Donor Joint Statement, represents a major
breakthrough in addressing the twin challenges of climate change
and nature loss as the world sees mass species extinctions and
habitat loss accelerate at an alarming rate.
Donors have committed to
substantially increase their investment by 2025, which will be
used to align financial flows from public and private sources to
the restoration of nature.
Donor commitments
include:
- In line with the 50% increase of its annual contribution to
GEF-8, the Netherlands announced its commitment to increase its
total biodiversity-related development finance by 50% in 2025,
resulting in a target of $150 million for 2025.
- Spain intends to double its international funding for
biodiversity, aiming to dedicate at least 550 million € of its
Official Development Aid for biodiversity over the period
2021-2025.
- Canada will provide a new contribution of $350 million to
support developing countries – home to the vast majority of the
world’s biodiversity – to advance conservation efforts. This
funding will support the implementation of the future Global
Biodiversity Framework.
- Donors also reaffirm significant financial commitments made
in the run up to Convention on Biological Diversity, COP15. The
UK intends to meet its existing commitment of £3bn finance for
climate change solutions that protect, restore, and sustainably
manage nature as previously stated from 2021-2026.
- France has announced it would double its international
finance for biodiversity to reach EUR 1 billion per year by 2025,
Germany will increase its international biodiversity funding to
EUR 1.5 billion by 2025, as part of the increase of its
international climate budget to 6 billion euro annually by 2025
at the latest and the European Commission has pledged EUR 7
billion for biodiversity over 2021-27, in particular for the most
vulnerable countries.
- Other donors Australia, Japan, the United States and Norway
have also made significant commitments in the Donor Joint
Statement.
These commitments will support developing countries who host much
of the most important biodiversity worldwide, to implement the
Global Biodiversity Framework once agreed, including protecting
30% of the world’s land and ocean.
In addition, 11 philanthropies have come together to form the
Protecting Our Planet challenge and have doubled their support
for nature conservation to $5 billion ahead of the COP15. With a
strong COP15 outcome philanthropic leaders have indicated they
will substantially increase their contributions further.
Multilateral development banks are also stepping up and
committing to increase their finance for biodiversity and support
countries in delivering the new deal for nature being negotiated
in Montreal.
These announcements respond to the 10 Point Plan for Financing
Biodiversity, developed by the UK, Ecuador, Gabon and the
Maldives to increase international development finance for nature
as part of a comprehensive plan to finance nature recovery
globally.
Forty countries have now announced their support for the plan,
which sets out an ambitious and credible blueprint for closing
the biodiversity finance gap. This agreement not only calls for
greater mobilisation of domestic resources but for better
alignment of financial flows with the Global Biodiversity
framework to support nature recovery.
Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey said:
“A healthy and thriving natural environment underpins the social
and economic prosperity of our livelihoods, which is why it is
pivotal for the international community to put nature on the road
to recovery.
“The 10 Point Plan provides a clear vision for action, and I
welcome the strong response to the plan from the international
community with this significant increase in international public
finance to protect our planet’s biodiversity hotspots”.
The announcement was made at an event held during the High-Level
Segment, where Environment Ministers from around the world attend
negotiations at COP15. Leaders from government, international
financial institutions and civil society joined the event which
outlined why ambitious, global action is needed to bridge the gap
in financing biodiversity loss.
The UK hosted the event alongside Gabon, Ecuador and the
Maldives, the key signatories of the 10 Point Plan for Financing
Biodiversity. This landmark framework responds to calls from low
and lower-middle income countries for additional international
aid to enable them to better protect nature.
It commits the international community to create just transition
in the economy to benefit the communities embedded in nature, the
removal of subsidies which are harmful to biodiversity and the
use of public and private investment to mobilise domestic
resources, including green infrastructure and nature-based
solutions.
Notes to editors:
- The Donor Joint Statement will be published shortly.
- For more information on the 10 Point Plan, visit: The 10
Point Plan for financing biodiversity - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
