Monday, October 22, 2012

India convinces rich nations to commit $12 billion biodiversity conservation

India, backed by vociferous developing countries, ultimately convinced the rich world to double the international funds for conserving biodiversity in the developing world by 2015. The decision was taken at the annual meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, after hard-nosed negotiations with the European Union and some other countries drew the meeting into extra time.

The gathered representatives of 193 countries decided that the developed countries would double the biodiversity-related international funds by 2015, using a baseline figure of the average annual national spending on biodiversity between 2006 and 2010. Back-of-the-envelope calculations peg it to be around $12 billion.

The decision took a long-drawn argument with the UK, EU and Canada besides some other developed countries, Indian negotiators said. Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarjan was engaged in several closed-door parleys to convince the developed nations to give into the demand.

In a meeting that saw the North-South cleave get deepen, the rich countries demanded that the developing world first make a firmer assessment of needs and also develop elaborate reporting framework before funds are committed. The African nations, particularly, along with several other developing countries like Brazil saw this as a delaying tactic after promises were made last year that rich countries would pledge money at Hyderabad.

The last-minute deal also included the decision that greater number of countries would incorporate biodiversity-related concerns in their financial and development plans. All parties agreed to substantially increase domestic expenditures for biodiversity protection over the same period. These targets are not to be reviewed in 2014.

In another significant decision, the countries decided to classify marine areas on basis of their ecological or biological significance. This classification is expected to feed into the larger UN process of creating a new global treaty for conservation of biodiversity in international waters.

The meet also decided to keep track of and follow the precautionary principle in studying the impact of the new emerging science of synthetic biology — an advancement over the existing genetically modified technologies. 

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