By Albert Oppong-Ansah
GNA’s Special Correspondent, Montreal, Canada (Courtesy: Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Power Ghana)
Montreal (Canada), Dec. 19, GNA – Ghana and the African Group of Negotiators at the COP15 Meeting on-going in Montreal, Canada, are asking for dedicated and accessible funds to implement the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to live in harmony with nature.
The GBF is a ten-year framework with defined targets and pathways for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity – a variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms that maintain balance and support human life.
Mr Peter Dery, the Alternative Head of Ghana’s Delegation to the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Montreal, told the Ghana News Agency that the GEF had been acting as the financial mechanism of the Convention on Biodiversity on an interim basis.
“However, it has its limitations. It is overburdened, access is too difficult, and its resources are insufficient,” he said.
“For example, the GEF, with its grants of USD 500 million per year for implementation of biodiversity activities, tremendously falls short of all cost projections. Its current state cannot respond to the level of ambition for financing unless it is restructured, and funds ring-fenced for biodiversity implementation.”
Mr Dery said to comply with the Resolution of COP14 and COP15 with that biodiversity fund there was the need to adopt a robust strategy for resource mobilisation to achieve the 2030 targets and vision 2050.
The meeting, being hosted by Canada under the Presidency of China, brought together government representatives, academia, civil society organisations and other actors from around the world to set out new goals and develop an action plan towards conservation.
Despite the benefits of biodiversity, that is the different varieties of plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms that make a healthy planet, man’s daily actions, including use of pesticides, plastic pollution, vehicular emissions, and destruction of mangroves are reducing the biodiversity cover.
The three broad themes of the meeting are: Reducing Threats to Biodiversity; Meeting People’s Needs through Sustainable Use and Benefit-sharing; and Tools and Solutions for Implementation and Mainstreaming.
Mr Dery, also the Director of Environment, Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, commended the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) for funding nature conservation initiatives over the years.
He said Ghana’s delegation had held bilateral discussions with countries including the United Kingdom, Germany and European Union on some financial support to implement Biodiversity-related activities.
During negotiations at the weekend, all groups agreed to about 200 billion US$ annually by 2030 and that would include funding from all sources: international, domestic, public and private.
However, there were still a wide range of views on the question of the architecture of biodiversity finance as some parties would appreciate the establishment of a stand-alone fund outside the existing funding structure.
Others proposed an increase in the existing funding mechanisms and were not in favour of establishing anything new.
In several of the meetings, groups discussed how to compromise on a middle ground in establishing a dedicated fund on global biodiversity that is linked to and administered by the GEF.
GNA