Are they an essential financing channel at a time when the decline in biodiversity is reaching alarming thresholds? Or are they, on the contrary, a false solution? Biodiversity credits are sparking a lively debate within the framework of the 16my Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), organized until 1Ahem November in Colombia. Inspired by carbon credits granted in exchange for tons of CO2 avoided or absorbed, their objective is to reward actions beneficial to ecosystems.
In the crowded conference center, located North of Cali, where the official negotiations are taking place, members of NGOs demonstrated on Monday, October 28, to ask that any initiative on the issue be abandoned. On the same day, an international panel, promoted by France, presented the conclusions of a long-awaited report on the issue.
Interest in this financial instrument has been growing since COP15, organized in 2022 in Canada. Among the twenty-three objectives of the Kunming-Montreal agreement, adopted at the end of this conference, the objective dedicated to the mobilization of financial resources provides “promote innovative systems”as “Credits and compensations in terms of biodiversity”.
“Reward farmers”
During the Paris summit for a new financial pact, in June 2023, the issue once again became the center of attention. In September, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in turn called for the creation of a “nature credits” For “reward farmers who serve our planet.”
After the Paris summit, France and the United Kingdom launched an international advisory committee, the IAPB (International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits). Its mission: make recommendations for the creation of biodiversity credits “high integrity”while multiple initiatives are emerging around the world. Or, in other words, propose ways to guarantee the real effectiveness of these tools and prevent them from falling into the same pitfalls as carbon credits before.
In fact, the debate on biodiversity credits is fraught with a heavy legacy: surveys have shown that a large proportion of the carbon credits allocated by certification bodies did not actually correspond to any emissions reductions and that they had often had negative consequences for local populations.
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