Rich countries will double their funding of average between 2006 and 2010 to the developing countries by 2015 to conserve biodiversity, a United Nations conference decided on Friday. Chetan Chauhan reports.
Rich countries will double their funding of average between 2006 and 2010 to the developing countries by 2015 to conserve biodiversity, a United Nations conference decided on Friday.
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The Convention on Biological Diversity meeting took a decision after a marathon meeting well past Friday midnight with entire developing world - African group, China and Brazil - rallying behind the draft decision circulated by India.Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan said the most important achievement was to achieve the goal of unfinished work at last conference of parties in Japan on resource mobilization to meet 20 Aichi targets for biodiversity.
"After intense negotiations and tremendous efforts by the entire team and great cooperation by all the parties, we did manage to achieve that goal," Natarajan, who was also president for the conference, said.
India on Friday took the lead to break the logjam by introducing a new negotiating text proposing a balanced middle path.
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After the initial opposition by European Union, Japan and Canada, the important agreement was achieved after several rounds of hectic negotiations and diplomatic parleys.
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After the initial opposition by European Union, Japan and Canada, the important agreement was achieved after several rounds of hectic negotiations and diplomatic parleys.
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Apart from agreement on resource mobilization, the summit also took decisions on ecosystem restoration, national capacity building, conserving marine and wildlife areas, financial mechanism, geo-engineering and protecting rights of indigenous people.
In return to financial commitment by the rich nations, three-fourth of the developing countries will be required to place biodiversity in their national development agenda, having a defined mechanism to utilize the funds to be provided and come out with achievable outcomes.
The final document, however, does not specify whether the money to be provided will be public or private funded. It kept the option open for the rich nations with the document saying urging all parties to consider all possible sources and means to meet the resources required.
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The commitment at Hyderabad will mean that European Union will have to provide four billion Euros every year, just a billion more than its funding for saving biodiversity in 2010.
In all, the estimate is that the developing world's funding may be inadequate to protect the fast deteriorating biodiversity.
Commenting on the decisions, United Nations Environment Programme executive director Achim Steiner said the countries have sent a clear signal and delivered "additional commitments" underlining the fact that "biodiversity and ecosystems are a developing priority and central to a transition to an inclusive green economy".
Another success of the conference was that for the first time, developing countries, including India and several African states, pledged additional funds above and beyond their core funding towards the work of the CBD.
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The conference also launched Hyderabad Call for Biodiversity Champions - a programme to accept pledges from governments and organizations in support of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity. India has already pledged Rs 250 crore.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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