Two years ago, at the COP15 UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, 196 countries agreed to set up a fund for projects to conserve and restore nature – but it has struggled to attract large contributions. Now, at COP16 in Cali, government negotiators are clashing over what to do with it.
A group of developing countries – concerned about their access to the existing fund – is pushing a proposal to establish a new fund for biodiversity under the COP. The plan is for it to replace the one created in Montreal, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and offer biodiversity-rich developing countries a bigger say in how it is run.
“Biodiversity finance should be flowing to where biodiversity is. The voice of countries bearing a greater burden should count more than it does in the GEF governance system,” Brazilian negotiator André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said at the opening session of COP16 on Monday.
Experts told Climate Home News the future of the fund could become the biggest issue for debate at the Colombia summit, adding that disagreements over the developing-country proposal were starting to obstruct progress on other finance negotiations.
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Old divisions re-emerge
In 2022, countries decided to host the newly created Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) at the GEF – a multilateral agency co-founded by the World Bank and other UN agencies – through to 2030, with the option to extend the arrangement after that year.
Some developing nations strongly opposed the GEF as host of the fund, fearing they would not have enough influence over it, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) objecting to the entire new global nature pact agreed in Montreal due to the row about the fund.
Decisions about what to do with the fund’s money are made by a council that has 16 members from developing countries, 14 from developed countries, and two from the countries of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The fund is supposed to provide “enhanced access for Indigenous peoples and local communities, according to their own priorities”. But, in a recent briefing shared with Climate Home, Survival International argues that conflating Indigenous peoples and local communities is “highly problematic” – and claims the GEF does not have adequate safeguards to ensure consent from Indigenous people.
Survival International, a campaign group for the rights of tribal people, also says the fund’s portfolio “so far is dominated by UN agencies and a select handful of mostly US-based conservation organisations” and reinforces “old and failing models of top-down, colonial conservation especially through the establishment of national parks”.
This week, efforts to take management of the fund away from the GEF have resurfaced at COP16.
Brazil backs a proposal to establish a new fund designed in “an inclusive and innovative way, learning from the experience of current instruments”, Corrêa do Lago told the opening plenary. Other countries – from India and Bangladesh to South Africa and China – have also called for a more equitable and transparent approach to biodiversity funding, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
Join our COP16 WhatsApp channel for live updates from reporters on the ground
As talks ramped up during the first week of the conference in Colombia, divisions started to surface. Canada, for example, rejected the idea of a new fund during a finance session on Tuesday.
“The proposal to create a new donor-based fund or financial mechanism would serve to further fragment the biodiversity finance landscape and lead to increased administrative costs, without mobilizing new donor funding,” reads the Canadian statement.
One source inside the negotiating rooms told Climate Home News the DRC said it would not proceed with any discussions on finance until the issue of the funding mechanism was resolved.
The chair of Working Group 1, Charlotta Sörqvist from Sweden, during biodiversity finance discussions at COP16. (Photo: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)
“Toxic” issue
According to Thomas Pickford, UK policy and partnerships lead at The Nature Conservancy, the future of the UN biodiversity fund has “real potential to be an obstacle for progress”.
“It’s kind of become a toxic issue that we’re trying to work through,” he told Climate Home News. “There’s obviously a big disagreement between donor countries and recipient countries.”
WWF’s head of global advocacy, Bernadette Fischler Hooper, said wealthy countries could build trust by sending strong signals on their funding commitments.
Finance for the GBFF’s coffers has so far been scarce. Developed countries have pledged around $243 million, of which the fund has received nearly $194 million, with COP15 host Canada – which made the largest commitment – yet to pay in the full amount.
The pledges to the GBFF, from just a handful of countries, are only a fraction of the COP15 target for donor governments to provide $20 billion a year for biodiversity protection by 2025, rising to $30 billion by 2030.
Broader development funding from donors for efforts to protect and restore nature grew from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $15.4 billion in 2022, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – but much of it came in the form of loans.
Reform needed?
So far, the GBFF has approved 22 projects, mainly to be implemented in the Global South but nearly all managed by large accredited organisations including multilateral development banks, UN agencies and Global North green groups like WWF and Conservation International.
At COP16, some developing countries said the number of projects was low partly due to difficulties in accessing the money. In a statement during the finance talks, Uruguay noted that of 66 projects applying for the second round of GBFF grants, only 18 were approved.
WWF’s Fischler Hooper called for “flexibility and openness from countries to have a conversation about all available options and unblock the current deadlock in the negotiations” on the biodiversity funding mechanism.
Pickford of The Nature Conservancy said the main options on the table are: creating a new fund in Cali, deferring the decision until COP17 in two years’ time, doing more assessments on whether a new fund is necessary, or ratifying the current fund as the final financial instrument.
He emphasised that the GBFF so far has “nowhere near enough funding” and called for reform to how the GEF runs it.
“We want streamlined access to developing countries. For Indigenous people and local communities, it’s still too hard to access funding,” he added.
(Reporting by Sebastian Rodriguez; editing by Megan Rowling and Joe Lo)
The post At COP16, countries clash over future of global fund for nature protection appeared first on Climate Home News.
At COP16, countries clash over future of global fund for nature protection
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
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Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that, while these are important governance measures, their existence does not necessarily demonstrate that the underlying risk of forest carbon loss has been reduced.
“It is important to distinguish between evidence of actual risk reduction and assumptions about the effectiveness of policy commitments,” she added.
Moving target
A UN source told Climate Home News that, under the approved formula, improved cookstove projects must set aside at least 9% of credits linked to saved wood if they operate in th