According to the criteria of
“It will be a great celebration of unity that will put us on another level in the discussion of global issues. We will lead the agenda of protecting nature and biodiversity,” said the foreign minister. Luis Gilberto Murillo a few days ago when referring to what it means to organize this meeting.
The country will host this summit for the first time in its history. In Latin America, only Argentina, Brazil and Mexico have been hosts.
It is also historic because several heads of state will attend, something that is not common at biodiversity summits: the leaders confirmed so far are Lula da Silva, from Brazil; José Raúl Mulino, from Panama; Xiomara Castro, from Honduras; Nana Akufo-Addo, from Ghana, and Umaro Sissoco Embaló, from Guinea-Bissau.
In this sense, according to experts consulted, COP16 will be a window of opportunities and challenges in diplomatic terms.
“Hosting this multilateral conference gives the country an important path of projection, leadership and positioning with respect to the global conservation agenda. In addition, being a megadiverse and Amazonian country, Colombia has important arguments of authority to promote compliance with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) “through bolder and more actionable proposals, aligned with the geostrategic and national interest of preserving the country’s biological assets,” says Laura Lizarazo, analyst at the firm Control Risks.
The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo, presented the summary of the preparations for COP16.
Photo:
Faryde Carlier of Conservation International agrees: “The organization of COP16 makes Colombia the president of the conference, a relevant actor in raising the ambition of the commitments assumed between States and promoting the mobilization of society so that their voices are heard.”
In the words of Manuel Rodríguez Becerra, professor at the University of Los Andes, co-founder of the SDG Center and president of the National Environmental Forum, “It is to shed light on the country richest in biodiversity per square kilometer and a milestone that must be recognized by the government of Gustavo Petro.”
The Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, led the application and presentation of the country’s credentials to host the summit after Turkey withdrew from hosting the summit following the earthquakes that occurred in February 2023. “It was a diplomatic success and will bring greater reputation to the country, especially because these types of summits are often interpreted as achievements in prestige before international society,” highlights Nicolas Beckmann, professor of Global Studies at the Universidad de los Andes.
Emphasis on specific issues
COP16 will be the first to be held after the Kunming-Montreal Framework was adopted two years ago, the most important roadmap of the decade for the protection of the biological diversity in which 23 objectives were established.
“There are high expectations about what will happen in Cali, but we should not exaggerate, because what is going to happen is that some steps will be taken towards implementation,” explains Manuel Rodríguez.
And he continues: “Specifically, Colombia has three goals: to emphasize the national strategies of each country and create a system to verify progress; to reduce the gap between the resources needed for implementation and those currently available to do so, and the benefits for each nation in terms of the use of genetic information banks.”
COP16 will review progress on compliance with the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework approved two years ago for biodiversity conservation.
Photo:
Minister Muhamad has emphasized this last point since COP15 and has put on the table the need for a “fair distribution” of the benefits of genetic resources, something that is in line with what is established in the Nagoya Protocol of 2010 and is one of the major objectives of the Convention.
“Colombia must counterbalance the interests of corporations, which will seek to ensure that the private property system gains ground as an allocation system for digital sequences in the multilateral mechanism that will be adopted at the summit,” says Martha Isabel Gómez Lee, research professor at the Externado University.
Colombia has to counterbalance corporate interests
But that poses a challenge. “It is difficult for a country in the global south to lead issues related to the environmental agenda and that is because the major treaties were drawn up to demarcate responsibility on the part of the countries in the north,” says Vanessa Torres, deputy director of the organization Ambiente y Sociedad.
This is an issue that Professor Beckmann also stresses: “If a country decides to develop ambitious progressive environmental policies, it is a valued effort, but it will not change the dynamics of the challenge. That is, it would only be manageable if all countries, or most of them, participate, especially the great powers, such as the United States, China and India, otherwise it will never be enough.”.
In this sense, Torres believes that the country can be relevant if it addresses specific issues, such as, for example, what “Peace with Nature” means, which is the slogan of the summit: “This is a scenario where you can be a leader. For example, Colombia recently ratified the Escazu Agreementwhich is a treaty so that, among other things, States have the obligation to defend environmental defenders, and can carry that flag.” For experts, this should become a priority, even more so since Colombia is once again the country in which most environmental leaders are murdered in the world.
Key partners
Minister Muhamad has promoted that The agendas for biodiversity protection and climate change are unified, with an emphasis on reducing emissions. And it is likely that he will also mention this at the Cali summit.This proposal could be a major step forward in cooperation between countries, analysts say.
“In the midst of this search, the Colombian government has proposed two initiatives that have resonated elsewhere: the debt swap for nature care, which calls for countries that protect biodiversity to be recognized with a reduction in their loans to international banks, and the promotion of the non-proliferation treaty of fossil fuels, which proposes a deeper energy transition and has only been signed so far by island countries, with Colombia being the only medium-sized economy in the world that promotes it,” says Diana Medina Casas, director of the firm Seguimiento y Estrategia.
Colombia and Brazil, partners for COP16
Photo:
Furthermore, “through their embassies in Colombia, the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Norway have acted as some of the main allies, seeking a consensus on measures to reduce emissions,” he added.
For Nicolas Beckmann, “Colombian environmental policy can become a state policy and that would make the country a leader and a reference for others. Here, South-South relations can even be strengthened. and achieve a critical mass of governments to make a concerted effort.”
The opportunity to strengthen alliances In these areas, the work has been carried out in recent years. In the region, there is a key partner: Brazil, which will be important during COP16; not in vain its president will attend. “At the regional level, Colombia has been able to agree with Brazil on a joint agenda for the protection of the Amazoniawhich will be promoted not only at the Biodiversity Conference but also at COP30, which will take place in November 2025 in Belém.”
The outcome of what happens in October will undoubtedly have repercussions on foreign policy. “Due to the global visibility and relevance that the summit will have, Gustavo Petro’s government is betting part of its bet on positioning a more ambitious policy with an ethnic and territorial focus and articulated with the transformation of social dynamics,” says Laura Lizarazo.
And in this order of ideas, experts should not ignore the details of form beyond the substantive issues.This is a top-level event and will help cement Colombia and Cali as world-class venues. But for it to be a success, security must be guaranteed in the city and its surroundings, and logistics must be in line with an event of such magnitude. The result of this will impact the country’s subsequent image,” says Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk.
Carlos Jose Reyes Garcia and David Alejandro Lopez Bermudez
THE TIME
More news
#COP16 #issues #Colombia #consolidate #environmental #leadership
