Nearly 200 nations have backed a groundbreaking global action plan linking health and the natural world at the close of UN biodiversity negotiations in Cali, Colombia, marking a rare victory in a summit otherwise characterised by disappointment.

The final agreement on a “health and biodiversity action plan” was approved as a voluntary rather than mandatory measure, serving as a best-practice guide for nations to integrate health considerations into their nature protection plans. But it still stands as an achievement, capping four years of negotiations and reflecting health’s growing prominence in environmental diplomacy.

“Parties approved a global action plan on biodiversity and health designed to help curb the emergence of zoonotic diseases, prevent non-communicable diseases, and promote sustainable ecosystems,” the COP16 secretariat announced as the Cali meeting closed early on Saturday morning after a frantic overnight session.

“The strategy embraces a holistic ‘one health’ approach that recognises the health of ecosystems, animals and humans as interconnected,” the secreteriat added.

Other key developments from the 16th conference of parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (COP16) included a new voluntary framework whereby a small percentage of corporate profits derived from genetic resources harvested in countries should be allocated to a new global fund for biodiversity protection – dubbed the Cali fund.

Nations also agreed to establish a permanent body for Indigenous peoples within the UN treaty framework following three decades of advocacy on the issue.

Yet the likely legacy of COP16 came in its complete failure to mobilise funds anywhere near the $200bn annual target for nature protection by 2030 set out in the landmark Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) agreement reached in Montreal in 2022. It raised just $163 million in new funds to combat the biodiversity crisis – 500 times short of the 2030 goal.

In a final blow to the summit’s ambitions, nations failed to agree on mechanisms to monitor compliance with the treaty and its targets – this after the world has missed every single UN biodiversity goal since the CBD framework’s establishment in 1992.

Global action plan links health and nature protection

In the panel “Prioritizing Actions in Biodiversity and Health” at #COP16, Colombia @MinSaludCol and Nigeria @SalakoIziaq led the dialogue on the Global Action Plan on Biodiversity and Health, discussing key measures to prevent pathogen transmission. 🌎👨‍⚕️ pic.twitter.com/kslZWqYxHa

— COP16 COLOMBIA 🇨🇴 (@COP16Oficial) November 1, 2024

The new UN biodiversity and health action plan urges governments to put health at the heart of their nature protection strategies. While voluntary, the agreement marks a turning point in environmental policy by formally recognising for the first time that “biodiversity loss and its direct drivers are a threat to animal, human and plant health”.

The decision comes as scientists increasingly warn that the destruction of natural habitats is driving disease outbreaks and raising pandemic risks. The loss of biodiversity also undermines Earth’s basic life support systems – from food security and clean water to medicinal plants and vital ecosystem services. These impacts are amplified by the climate crisis, creating a feedback loop that further threatens public health.

Drawing on “lessons” from Covid-19, the plan emphasises the “urgent need to conserve, restore and sustainably use biodiversity” to prevent future zoonotic diseases – those that jump from animals to humans.

‘Embracing the interconnectedness of biodiversity and health’

The decision document places particular emphasis on how vulnerable groups, including women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities face outsized health impacts, while Indigenous communities are especially hard hit,  given their “unique interdependent relationship” with local ecosystems. 

Key rehabilitation strategies outlined in the 21-page health and biodiversity blueprint call on countries to set health-relevant targets that would also help reach the overall targets of the Convention on Biodiversity. These include, for example, the promotion of more healthier and sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry; addressing wildlife fragmentation and species management; land and sea use; and reducing pollution in multiple forms, from air pollutants to microplastics.

The text also calls for countries to address the unsafe disposal of antimicrobials and pharmaceuticals – which fuel drug resistance already claiming 1.27 million lives every year and threatening the efficacy of medicines used by billions globally.

“This is a breakthrough moment affecting humans, wildlife and other animals, and ecosystems,” the Wildlife Conservation Society, which provided technical input to the negotiations said in a statement. 

“Millions died and suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this Convention is charting an excellent path to fully embrace the integration and interconnectedness of biodiversity and health,” WCS vice-president Susan Lieberman added.

“There can be no prevention of future pandemics of zoonotic origin without the protection and ecological integrity of nature,” Lieberman said. “We have no future without nature.”

No binding measures adopted

However, as one of few documents achieving consensus in Cali, the final text emerged somewhat diluted. 

The plan repeatedly emphasizes its voluntary nature, stating that “nothing” in the document “should be interpreted as modifying the rights and obligations” of any nation that is party to the legally binding CBD agreement reached in Montreal in 2022. 

Specific references to industry’s impacts on biodiversity and health were softened. For instance, explicit mention of “unsustainable agricultural intensification” was removed from the final text. Ditto for a blunt reference to the “increasing human demand for animal protein” as a factor driving zoonotic diseases. Instead, the final text notes that  infectious diseases “can be exacerbated by human activities, such as unsustainable land-use change practices and habitat fragmentation.” 

Even so, advocates of a stronger linkage between health and biodiversity said the decision was a step in the right direction. 

“At the end of the day, this plan is only going to be voluntary, but it’s still good guidance,” Dr Colman O’Criodain, head of biodiversity policy at WWF, told Carbon Brief. “Even if countries that don’t commit formally to implement it use the guidance and take the parts of it that are relevant to them, that’s still a good thing.” 

Landmark ‘Cali Fund’ created for companies to share profits from the use of genetic resources 

Another key agreement came in the early hours of Saturday morning, when nations agreed to create a new global biodiversity fund, financed by corporate profits derived from the creation of new products using genetic resources. 

The agreement, which first appeared uncertain amid hundreds of early textual disputes, stood out as a rare note of final consensus in an otherwise divided summit.

At the heart of the new arrangement is the sharing of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) – which can map the unique genetic blueprint of virtually any plant species or micro-organism, including pathogens, at the digital level, making sharing faster and more efficient than through biological tissue samples. 

Big food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies worldwide now harness and use genetic resources, captured as DSI, across far-flung borders, to create new products worth billions of dollars annually. But developing countries have long maintained that they are left out of the loop of benefits that come from the harvesting of new genetic resources in their regions. The new plan marks the first global attempt to address the imbalance. 

The agreement targets companies meeting two of three thresholds: annual sales exceeding $50 million, profits over $5 million, or assets above $20 million. These firms “should” contribute either 1% of revenue or 0.1% of profits to the new “Cali Fund” to support developing country biodiversity preservation and restoration. Although the rates remain “indicative”. 

Further underlying that voluntary nature, a last-minute revision stripped out a requirement for companies to “demonstrate” they hadn’t used DSI in their products. 

“The deal reached means businesses have the option of voluntarily contributing to a new fund – known as the Cali Fund – if they use this genetic information from nature, said the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, calling it a “new deal for biodiversity from using nature’s genetic information”. 

The CBD will manage the funds collected for nature conservation, with at least half flowing to indigenous communities. In that way, the new Cali Fund also aims to avoid the pitfalls of closely attributing the profits from genetic resources culled by industry to one particular country or community. 

“Parties and non-Parties are invited to take administrative, policy or legislative measures, consistent with national legislation, to incentivise contributions from users in their jurisdiction to the global fund in line with the modalities of the multilateral mechanism,” the text urges.   

UN Environment chief Inger Andersen also hailed the mechanism as a “big win” – even if further refinements to the profit-sharing mechanism will have to rely on national interpretation – or next year’s next COP 17.   

“The new ‘Cali Fund,’ although imperfect and with many details still to be ironed out, is an important step forward,” said Kirsten Schuijt, Director General of WWF International. “It ensures that companies profiting from nature contribute fairly to biodiversity conservation and directs critical funding to the people and places that need it most.”

Notably, the United States, home to many leading agro, pharma and cosmetics giants is  not a signatory to the CBD – leaving Washington outside the scope of compliance altogether. 

Pharma voices concerns over impacts on medicines and vaccines R&D 

Despite its voluntary nature, the new arrangement quickly came under fire from pharma industry voices who expressed fears that the arrangement could hinder the rapid sharing of genetic data on pathogens, critical for new medicines development during health emergencies. 

Pharma has argued that pathogens, unlike genetic resources used to develop new plant products or cosmetics, need to be shared with researchers with no strings attached so as to expedite the development of new vaccines and medicines. Pathogens also  mutate, rapidly crossing borders and making their genetic origins all the more difficult to trace. 

During COVID-19, for instance,  mRNA vaccines by Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech relied on hundreds of digital genetic sequences to roll out vaccines in record time – generating billions in profits but also saving millions of lives.

“The decision adopted today does not get the balance right between the intended benefits and potential costs to society and science,” warned David Reddy, Director General of IFPMA in a press statement. 

“The pharmaceutical industry has long supported the Convention on Biological Diversity’s objective to protect our natural world,” Reddy said. 

Even so, “The ability to rapidly use scientific data known as “digital sequence information” (DSI) is essential for developing new medicines and vaccines,” he added. “Any new system should not introduce further conditions on how scientists access such data and add to a complex web of regulation, taxation and other obligations for the whole R&D ecosystem – including on academia and biotech companies. 

“Ahead of COP17, it is critical that governments work to ensure the implementation of any new mechanism on digital sequence information does not stifle medical research and innovation that can bring the next wave of medical progress to people around the world.”

Issue is also being debate in WHO-led negotiations on a Pandemic accord  

Another complication lies in the fact that a mechanism for linking pharma pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) is also being debated in WHO-led member state negotiations over a Pandemic Accord, which resumed on Monday in Geneva. 

Any decision ultimately reached in a Pandemic Accord could potentially supersede the arrangements in the CBD, particularly since the Accord is supposed to be a legally binding agreement.  

Meanwhile, independent experts are still divided over if and how a profit-sharing mechanism could  be designed that did not also hamper rapid vaccine development and outbreak monitoring and reporting by countries. 

The DSI Scientific Network, a global alliance of experts from over 20 countries, has, on the one hand, suggested sales-tax like levies on end products– could balance seamless genetic sequence access for research with profit-sharing. It has also proposed “in-kind” contributions like vaccine doses to ensure equitable access.

Yet charging companies for using particular genetic sequences in their end products – may in fact be much harder than it sounds, the same expert network observes.

“Research that uses DSI routinely compares and selects among millions of sequences, often merging or editing them, making it impossible to attribute products to any single sequence,” DSI Network researchers explained in one brief, which explored Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine patent application as an example.

“With many nearly identical sequences from different countries, proving which ones were used to develop commercial products becomes unfeasible,” the researchers said. 

Funding shortfalls for biodiversity preservation 

While observers say that the new ‘Cali Fund’ for DSI profit sharing could eventually generate up to $1 billion annually for biodiversity protection, reaping those funds is years away. 

And that still falls far short of the target in the legally binding UN biodiversity of 2022.  That  treaty called for $200 billion annually for nature protection by 2030, including $20 billion from rich countries on a voluntary basis. The needs, meanwhile, rise as high as $700 billion annually required to sustainably protect and restore global ecosystems, independent experts have maintained.

Over the two-week run of COP 16, just $163 million from eight countries – including Germany, Austria, France, Norway and the UK – was pledged to the CBD’s ‘Global Biodiversity Framework Fund’ (GBFF), hosted by the World Bank. That brings currently available funding to $400 million – 500 times short of the 2030 target.

After COP 16 stretched into overtime, lasting all night Friday until 9am Saturday morning, the summit was abruptly suspended when too few countries remained in the room for decisions to be made. Many smaller delegations, unable to afford costs to rebook flights, had to leave – an unceremonious end that encapsulates the core frustration expressed by developing nations, scientists and civil society observers alike: where is the money?

Where is the money? 

Originally, funds were expected to come from slashing $500 billion in environmentally harmful subsidies, which the 2022 Montreal CBD agreement had pledged to eliminate. Governments, however, allocated a record-breaking $1.4 trillion to fossil fuel subsidies in 2023. And the World Bank estimates countries spent $1.25 trillion subsidizing agriculture, fossil fuels, chemical production and other industries that destroy biodiversity.

While the EU announced it will double its biodiversity funding to $7 billion for 2021-2027 and committed hundreds of millions to other projects to deliver –”on global financing commitments to protect nature” – a strong push led by the African Group and Brazil to establish a new biodiversity fund was rejected. 

Developing nations had argued that the World Bank-hosted GBFF is too complicated to access and controlled by wealthy countries – an argument rejected by the European Union and other major donors.

Ultimately, the meeting even failed to agree on a budget for the Convention on Biological Diversity itself, the instrument under which the biodiversity COPs are organized. 

Debt crisis sidelined

Host nation Colombia’s also pushed to have the burgeoning debt crisis recognized in financing arrangements – but that too failed to receive support. 

Donor nations in Europe and elsewhere provide the majority of their biodiversity funding as loans – and that trend is accelerating, with about 80% or more of new funding in 2021-2022 coming as loans rather than grants. China – which holds trillions in developing country loans – also opposed recognizing debt as part of the biodiversity crisis.

Last month, the World Bank revealed the world’s 26 poorest countries are in their worst financial shape since 2006, as natural disasters and COVID-19’s reverberating shocks continue to hit their economies. Over 3 billion people now live in nations spending more on debt financing than education and health budgets, according to UN figures. Developing countries trapped under major debt burdens argue loans should not count as finance.

An expert report on debt, nature and climate released just ahead of COP16 meanwhile found that countries most exposed to biodiversity loss and climate-driven extreme weather now rely increasingly on expensive loans to rebuild and cope with changes.

“Emerging markets and developing economies have seen both the levels and cost of debt soar,” the Independent Expert Group reported. “This means that EMDCs can borrow less, at greater cost, at a moment when they need more and cheaper finance to limit the extent of future shocks.”

“It is essential today to change debt for climate action,” Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said at the opening of COP16. “Those who emit the most CO2 into the atmosphere are the fossil, oil and coal economies, they are the powerful economies of the United States, China and Europe,” and they are the ones who “charge interest rate surcharges to countries that can still absorb CO2.”

“That is a true moral and deadly contradiction,” he said. “It is the richest, predatory countries that must be taxed to eliminate carbon from production and consumption,” he added.

Historic victory for indigenous peoples 

Yet amid the summit’s setbacks, one significant victory emerged: the agreement by nations to establish a permanent body for Indigenous Peoples within the CBD  framework.

The new subsidiary body recognizes “Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent as key protagonists in biodiversity conservation,” providing them with a seat at the table to protect traditional knowledge systems, strengthen representation in decision-making, and promote Indigenous territorial biodiversity management.

It is the first formal mechanism for indigenous communities’ representation within UN environmental negotiating frameworks. 

“This is an unprecedented occasion in the history of multilateral environmental agreements,” said Camila Paz Romero, Indigenous Peoples’ spokesperson at the summit. “Indigenous peoples and local communities of the world – connected from our knowledge systems in the care of life and biodiversity – remember the long road we have travelled towards this agreement.”

Image Credits: COP16, CIFOR-ICRAF, UNCTAD.