A major fund for biodiversity remains starved of resources more than five months after its launch – with no money yet put forward by the large companies who could contribute.
The “landmark” Cali Fund – which could generate billions of pounds each year – was created under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the COP16 nature negotiations in Cali, Colombia last autumn.
Countries agreed that certain companies “should” pay into the fund, but this is not legally binding and donations are, ultimately, voluntary.
The fund is designed to be a way for companies who rely on nature’s genetic resources to share some of their earnings with the developing, biodiverse countries where many of the original resources are found.
Companies use genetic data from these materials to develop products, such as vaccines and skin cream.
Emails released to Carbon Brief under the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act show that companies were contacted with opportunities to be involved in the Cali Fund before its launch in February 2025.
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca did not take up an offer from a UK government department to be a “frontrunner” in committing to donate to the fund, the emails show.
GSK, another major company in the sector, also did not confirm its position.
These are the UK’s two largest pharmaceutical companies and they could each potentially contribute tens of millions of pounds to the fund, based on current guidelines.
Earlier this year, a spokesperson for the CBD said that the first contributions to the Cali Fund could be announced in spring.
One US biotechnology company has pledged to contribute to the fund in the future, but, for now, the fund remains empty.
Company hesitancy could be “driven by industry bodies” who “don’t want unhappy precedents to be set” on the level of funding, a researcher who was involved in the fund negotiations tells Carbon Brief.
Lack of funds
Companies all around the world use genetic materials from plants, animals, bacteria and fungi to develop their products.
There are existing rules in place to secure consent and compensation, if companies or researchers physically travel to a country to gather these materials.
But, currently, much of this information is available in online databases – with few rules in place around the requirements needed for access. This genetic data is known as digital sequence information (DSI).

In an effort to close the loophole, almost every country in the world agreed in 2024 to set up the Cali Fund.
The agreement outlines that large companies in sectors including pharmaceutical, cosmetic, biotechnology, agribusiness and technology “should” contribute to the fund to share back a cut of the money they earn from the use of these materials. (See: Carbon Brief’s infographic on DSI.)
However, these contributions are voluntary. Many African and Latin American countries sought a legally binding mechanism around this issue at COP16, but this did not happen.
The fund officially opened at the resumed COP16 negotiations in Rome in February 2025.
With the fund still empty more than five months later, a spokesperson for the CBD secretariat tells Carbon Brief that a US-based biotechnology firm, Ginkgo Bioworks, is the first to “indicat[e] its intention to contribute”.
The CBD, also acting as the interim secretariat for the new fund, “continue[s] to engage with business associations to raise awareness and secure funding”, the spokesperson says.
They add that a decision-making body and a steering committee have been set up.

The CBD received “positive feedback and engagement” from companies about the fund, the UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker said in a February press conference. She added that donations were expected “very soon”, but not in “massive numbers”.
Carbon Brief contacted Ginkgo Bioworks for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
‘Frontrunner’ contributors
Through an FOI request, Carbon Brief received email correspondence between the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), major pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and GSK, and trade group the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) between August 2024 and April 2025. (Carbon Brief has uploaded the FOI documents it received to a Google Drive folder.)
A representative from Defra told AstraZeneca in December 2024 that they were contacting a “select number of companies that will likely be frontrunners with the Cali Fund and make contributions – leading the way for others to follow suit”.
The Defra employee said that they had received “some positive signals from these companies” and asked if AstraZeneca was interested in “demonstrating commitment in this start-up phase of the fund”. This email said:
“I hope this finds you well – and thanks for joining various calls over the last few weeks on DSI, it’s great to have you involved. I know that AZ have been really forward leaning on ABS issues in the past (including under your leadership) and now that we have the Cali Fund for benefit sharing from the use of DSI, I wondered if we might pick up the conversation on any role AZ might be able to take as an early mover in the ABS world?
“We are beginning to have conversations with a select number of companies that will likely be frontrunners with the Cali Fund, and make contributions – leading the way for others to follow suit – and we have had some positive signals. Do you think there might be any interest from AZ in demonstrating commitment in this start-up phase of the Fund? If it would be helpful to have a conversation to chat through, please do let me know and I’d be super happy to set something up.”
The AstraZeneca representative responded to say the company was “in the process of conducting an assessment to define our position” on the fund and that they would “welcome a conversation” when this concluded.
A Defra official contacted the company again in early January to say the government was preparing meetings between a member of the CBD secretariat and several businesses “that have shown some interest in leading others by making the first contributions to the fund”.
They asked if AstraZeneca was interested in attending this meeting. The company declined, but said it would be interested in future discussions.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson declined to respond to Carbon Brief’s questions, but Carbon Brief understands that the company is still reviewing its position on the fund.

Similar exchanges took place between representatives from Defra and GSK ahead of the Cali Fund launch.
GSK was invited to the same January meetings, but the company said nobody was available to attend. A Defra official contacted GSK in February to update on progress with the fund, outlining that it would be launched in Rome, “accompanied by a platform for announcements and press coverage”.
The Defra official asked GSK to let them know “if you think there might be any opportunities for GSK – we would obviously love to add your voice to the positive coverage”. The email read:
“As a broader update, we are still expecting the Fund to formally launch in Rome at COP16.2, and that will be accompanied by a platform for announcements and press coverage. We are also working with another CBD Party to explore the option of putting on some kind of reception for those businesses that are leading the way together.
“Please do let me know if you think there might be any opportunities for GSK – we would obviously love to add your voice to the positive coverage!”
They also asked if GSK would like to see a draft version of a press release from the CBD about the launch of the Cali Fund, along with other businesses “that are interested in being part of the launch”.
(The Cali Fund launch press release did not contain any quotes or donation announcements from companies.)
GSK said that it was “awaiting further clarification on a number of key elements” before making a decision on the Cali Fund and would respond “in due course”.
The company “support[s] the intent” behind the fund, a spokesperson tells Carbon Brief, adding:
“We’ll make a decision regarding voluntary contributions when more information becomes available about how the Cali Fund sits alongside other multilateral mechanisms.
“GSK was one of the first companies to publish a nature strategy and we continue to work on delivering our plan to address our nature impacts and invest in nature protection and restoration.”
A Defra spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“Nature underpins everything and those who profit from the use of genetic data should pay nature back. The Cali Fund provides the route for companies to do that.
“The government is committed to continuing to engage constructively with industry to drive contributions and champion the fund to protect nature and sustain innovation.”
The UK and Chile recently launched the “friends of the Cali Fund” group, which “brings together” governments and businesses to “champion” benefits sharing, a UK government statement said. Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Colombia have also joined this group.
UK companies could contribute £64m
Contributions to the Cali Fund are voluntary. They will depend on whether companies that rely on the use of genetic data will then admit to using genetic materials and decide to pay into the fund.
The agreement behind the fund, which is not legally binding, outlined that companies “should” contribute 1% of their profits, or 0.1% of their revenue. These are an “indicative rate”.
Words that are more binding, such as “will” and “shall”, were included in non-paper negotiation texts during the talks. But the final agreement referred to a fund that companies “should” pay into, which was criticised by some experts at the time.
At least half of the money raised will go towards meeting the “self-identified” needs of Indigenous communities in developing countries, particularly women and young people.
The overall fund could generate between $1bn and $10bn each year, according to a 2024 analysis requested by the CBD.

The cache of information released under FOI to Carbon Brief also includes a report on the impacts of a mandatory payment for using digital sequence information, which was prepared for Defra by consultancy company ICF in July 2024.
It estimated that a mandatory 1% levy on the profits of large UK companies “who are considered DSI-dependent” could generate nearly £64m ($85m) for the fund.
The report compared three different benefit-sharing mechanisms around genetic data: a mandatory levy on UK profits/revenues; a flat fee; or a subscription fee.
All options would negatively impact on “innovation” to varying degrees, the report said, but a mandatory levy on profits was found to have the “least negative impact on competition and innovation”.

During the Cali Fund negotiations last October, the Guardian reported that AstraZeneca “said it may cut jobs” in the UK, if such a levy was introduced. An AstraZeneca spokesperson denied the comments, the newspaper said.
Based on the “indicative” contribution rates of 1% of profits or 0.1% of revenue, Carbon Brief estimates that AstraZeneca could potentially contribute as much as £41-66m ($54-88m) and GSK £31-35m ($41-46m) each year to the fund.
AstraZeneca reported revenue of £41bn ($54bn) and £6.6bn ($8.7bn) in profit before tax in 2024. GSK’s revenue that year was around £31bn ($40bn) and its pre-tax profit was £3.5bn ($4.6bn).
Lobbying concerns
At COP16, many observers were concerned about industry lobbying around digital sequence information.
DeSmog analysis of COP16 attendees highlighted the presence of big pharmaceutical companies, powerful industry groups and agribusiness at the talks.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), a global pharmaceutical trade group, said it had “serious concerns” about proposals around the fund at the start of COP16. The group said it would result in “regulatory and financial barriers that would stifle innovation, delay R&D [research and development] and complicate compliance”.
The emails obtained by Carbon Brief show that, in August 2024, a GSK representative told Defra that the company believed proposals for a “simplistic payment mechanism based on revenues would be disproportionate and could hinder the development of new medicines and vaccines”. This email said:
“You were asking for views on the call, so I also wanted to take the opportunity to share GSK’s perspective at this time. We are supportive of a practical and fair multilateral mechanism for benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources. The criteria for this mechanism listed in decision 15/9 are particularly important, specifically the fact that it must not hinder research and innovation.
“We are concerned that the current proposals for a simplistic payment mechanism based on revenues would be disproportionate and could hinder the development of new medicines and vaccines. We would support the consideration of other models, for example a subscription model whereby organisations that access open source DSI databases make a contribution to the global fund.
“This would have the benefit of broadening the base of contributors. Tiers could be established based on size of organisation, so that the contributions were proportionate and fair.”
The FOI release also shows that ABPI chief executive, Dr Richard Torbett, wrote a letter to UK nature minister Mary Creagh on 17 October 2024, a few days before the COP16 summit began.
He “urge[d]” the government to not agree on the details of a fund “until more work has been conducted to understand the implications of proposals”.
Torbett said that, if this was not possible, the ABPI wanted the government to support an option put forward by Japan and South Korea to introduce a voluntary funding mechanism.
Hesitancy potentially ‘driven by industry bodies’
In a statement after COP16, the IFPMA’s director general, Dr David Reddy, said the decision creating the Cali Fund “does not get the balance right between the intended benefits of such a mechanism and the significant costs to society and science that it has the potential to create”.
The FOI release obtained by Carbon Brief includes a 20 March 2025 document from the ABPI discussing possible future changes to the fund.
The group said the fund “contains and omits several features which make it unlikely to attract significant contributors”. The ABPI “cannot over-emphasise the importance” of the fund being voluntary, the document said, with companies “free to decide” if and how much they want to contribute.
The ABPI urged the UK to discourage any country-level implementation of the COP16 digital sequence information agreement, arguing that “conflicting” action on a national, rather than global, level would “reduce the (already weak) incentives to contribute to the Cali Fund”.
The ABPI also criticised the agreed 0.1% and 1% contribution rates for companies, saying they are “regarded by industries generally as being unrealistic and likely to impact innovation”.

The ABPI declined to respond to Carbon Brief’s questions and referred Carbon Brief to the global trade group, the IFPMA. A spokesperson for the IFPMA also declined to respond to questions and pointed towards the company’s public statements on the issue.
Dr Siva Thambisetty, an associate professor of law at the London School of Economics and Political Science and project lead on an ocean biodiversity research group, believes the first contribution to the fund is a “prize that’s just waiting to be won”. She tells Carbon Brief:
“It would be an absolute coup for a responsible DSI company to be the first to make a contribution to the Cali Fund. Investors should be very interested in that company, for instance.
“We’ve got to move to a biodiversity market where investors are asking whether companies they invest in are contributing to remedy and repair at a global level through appropriate monetary benefit sharing.”
Thambisetty believes that this is “low-hanging fruit”, but acknowledges that companies have varying opinions on the fund and that the “majority might be unsure how to deal with this”. She adds:
“I think the hesitancy is mostly being driven by industry bodies because they don’t want unhappy precedents to be set. There is a collective action problem and the first company to break cover will be sending a signal that will be received differently by different people.”
The post Revealed: ‘Cali Fund’ for nature still empty as emails show industry hesitation appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: ‘Cali Fund’ for nature still empty as emails show industry hesitation
Climate Change
Why COP30 is critical for Australia and the Pacific
1. A Global Response Plan to address the 1.5°C emissions gap
Right now, countries’ new climate pledges — their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — still fall far short of what’s needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. If governments don’t step up, the world is on track to blow past this critical limit, with devastating consequences for Australia, the Pacific, and the entire planet. We can’t wait for another review cycle — COP30 must deliver a strong, credible Global Response Plan that drives urgent action.
To kickstart this, world leaders at the start of COP30 need to send a clear message: the energy transition is happening, fossil fuels are on the way out, and closing the emissions gap is non-negotiable.

The 29th UN Climate Conference, COP29, takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 11 to 22 November 2024. Greenpeace is at the COP to hold governments to account to make fossil fuel polluters pay for the climate crisis they have created, and put fossil fuel phase out plans at the heart of national climate action.
2. Protect Forests and Biodiversity
Forests are vital for life and climate stability — yet global pledges to protect them are fragmented and weak. COP30 must deliver a five-year Forest Action Plan to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 and bring together all international efforts under one clear roadmap.
Biodiversity and climate are two sides of the same crisis. Addressing one without the other risks harm. COP30 must unite the three Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity, and desertification so nature and people thrive together.

3. Make Polluters Pay and Fund Climate Action
A lack of finance is blocking progress. COP30 must create a strong accountability plan for the new global climate finance goal — starting with US$300 billion and scaling to US$1.3 trillion — ensuring funds reach First Nations, local communities, and vulnerable nations. Governments must back polluter-pays reforms so big emitters fund real climate solutions, not greenwash.

4. Towards a Pacific-Led COP31
A Pacific COP is a historic opportunity for bold climate leadership. Australia must ensure Pacific voices shape every decision — from closing the 1.5°C gap to phasing out fossil fuels and securing fair finance.
COP31 must also deliver a fast, fair fossil fuel phase-out — turning words into concrete action and signalling the end of coal, oil, and gas.
Climate Change
Climate-hit nations hail loss and damage fund’s debut call for proposals
Developing countries hit by extreme weather, rising seas and other climate change impacts have been asked to submit proposals for support from the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) for the first time, three years after its birth at COP27 in Egypt.
Under the debut call for proposals launched at COP30 in Belém, the fund’s board said $250 million would be available for projects seeking to address a wide range of climate-related losses – from damaged infrastructure to the loss of cultural heritage, or community displacement.
Announcing the launch of the fund’s activities, FRLD Co-Chair Jean-Christophe Donnellier said the initial call for funding requests would help “test, learn and shape the fund’s long-term model”. Fellow Co-Chair Richard Sherman said it “sends an important signal to developing countries that support is available”.
Countries will be able to submit their proposals starting in mid-December for six months through to mid-June, with funding approvals beginning in July next year.
Evans Njewa, chair of the Least Developed Countries Group at the climate talks, hailed the call for proposals as “a practical step toward justice, long awaited by communities on the frontlines”, adding that the loss and damage fund “must now deliver fast, simple and accessible support”.
Demand set to outpace resources
Activists fear that could be difficult, however. They say the fund is badly short of resources and will not be able to meet the enormous needs of developing countries.
By 2030, they could require $200 billion-$400 billion a year to address loss and damage caused by storms, droughts, flooding, extreme heat and rising seas made worse by climate change, according to an Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance.
However, developed countries have only pledged $788 million, signed commitments for over $560 million, and actually transferred less than $400 million of that total.
Tax luxury air travel to fund adaptation and loss and damage
Climate activist Harjeet Singh, founding director of India’s Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said that as climate impacts wreak havoc on countries including the Philippines and Jamaica – where Hurricane Melissa is estimated to have caused up to $7 billion in loss and damage – the FRLD “is starting with a fraction of the scale required”.
Singh said the operationalisation of the fund three years after it was agreed showed it had failed to function as a rapid response mechanism.
He called for the fund to correct its course to match “the scale of the crisis, not the scale of political convenience”.
“The countries and communities facing the worst consequences – those who had no role in causing this crisis – deserve more than an empty shell. This is not climate justice,” Singh said.
Acknowledging the need for more resources to meet the vast scale of need on the ground, Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, the FRLD’s executive director, said the fund will keep working “to mobilise additional resources to support our long-term ambitions”.
Rising call for L&D support in climate plans
Demands for the fund to expand support are reflected in the national climate plans (NDCs) submitted by developing countries to the UN climate body in the run-up to COP30.
South Africa, Vanuatu, Mauritius and Liberia are among those that have laid out demands for loss and damage support from the FRLD, emphasising that climate impacts in their countries have exceeded the limit to which they can adapt.
South Africa – which suffers prolonged droughts, destructive floods and heatwaves – said climate change is already causing “irreplaceable loss”, damaging cultural heritage sites and hurting Indigenous knowledge systems. It is also shrinking farmland, hitting economic growth and worsening health outcomes, including more heat-related illness and deaths, the country said in its NDC.
With support from the FRLD, South Africa plans to improve how the country records and understands the full impact of climate disasters, including collecting detailed information on who is affected, with particular consideration for women and marginalised groups, so that relief and rebuilding programmes can be more effectively targeted, its NDC said.
For Mauritius, climate-related disasters in 2024 caused losses equivalent to 0.07% of gross domestic product (GDP), and the country plans to seek support from the FRLD for recovery and disaster response systems in sectors including agriculture, fishing, housing and health.
The island country said it planned to use the resources to implement a Climate Compensation Fund mechanism to compensate for loss and damage in terms of personal belongings, loss of lives and inability to work due to climate-related disasters. It also plans to improve the country’s disaster response capacity by equipping emergency relief centres with food and other vital supplies.
The inclusion of loss and damage in countries’ NDCs “makes it clear that there is a cost, which must be covered”, said Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, a Danish NGO.
“We can decide if we want to invest in [emissions] mitigation and adaptation, but when it comes to loss and damage, there is no option. When climate-related disasters happen, communities will have to respond,” he added.
The post Climate-hit nations hail loss and damage fund’s debut call for proposals appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate-hit nations hail loss and damage fund’s debut call for proposals
Climate Change
Climate is MIA in Australia and Turkiye’s bids to host COP31
Catherine Abreu is the Director of the International Climate Politics Hub
In a move straight out of the movies, the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Climate Event in September put the two prospective hosts for the 2026 global climate talks, Türkiye and Australia, back-to-back in the speaking order.
Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Albanese confidently welcomed the world to their countries for COP31. Here at COP30, the drama continues, with the Australian and Turkish Pavilions sitting side-by-side while neither country seems prepared to step back from their bid. Get your popcorn.
Except this isn’t the movies, it’s the UN-led, multilateral process charged with helping us save ourselves from runaway climate change. And, thus far, what has been conspicuously missing from the pseudo-dramatic showdown between these two potential hosts is any meaningful discussion about how either country would aim to use its presidency of the climate talks to accelerate action on climate change, in their own country or globally. The drama, it would seem, has been misplaced.
Any country wanting to host the annual UN summit on climate change should be making the case for doing so based on their climate credentials – and their climate ambition.
While some past COPs may have made us forget this, the energy and intent of current COP President Brazil, and the conversation Brazil’s COP presidency has generated at home about the country’s climate action, serve as useful reminders of what we should be striving for in the host of the climate talks.
It would be disappointing not to have a solid plan in place for COP31 and risk losing the momentum Brazil will hopefully have generated by the end of COP30.
COP host criteria
So, what should we be looking for in a COP host? First, we need a prospective presidency to be clear about the conversations they envisage mediating in the run-up to and during their summit and how those will help us advance a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, within the framework of the Paris Agreement.
We need a COP presidency focused on the question of how they can use their platform to help improve countries’ abilities to respond to the impacts of climate change and address the losses and damages they are experiencing.
We need a presidency fully engaged with using their platform to secure commitments to provide the finance countries need to take climate action and respond to climate impacts, while advancing the need to transform global financial systems so that we are tackling the problem of climate change at its core, rather than deepening it.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need a host ready to commit their COP to being an effective space for negotiating, deliberation and decision making that is free from the undue influence of actors who are there to slow us down.
In other words, is the potential host ready to commit to a COP led by science and traditional and Indigenous knowledge? Are they prepared to ensure transparent accreditation processes that will expose conflicts of interest? And are they prepared and competent to facilitate an effective COP structure so that parties are given the opportunity to have the conversations they need to have, and to land the outcomes they need to achieve, without the influence of anticlimate lobbyists in their midst? If the answers to all of these questions are not a resounding yes, this is not the Presidency we need.
Moreover, a potential COP host should be prepared to use their global platform to substantially advance climate action on the domestic level.
In the case of Australia, that should involve being steered by the wider Pacific leadership on just and equitable transitions away from fossil fuels. As the second largest coal exporter in the world and with a domestic energy mix that includes both fossil fuels and booming renewable energy growth, Australia can and should be aiming to credibly lead conversations on export market transformation and power system transitions to ethical renewable energy and improving energy efficiency.
For Türkiye, affirming a direction of travel away from coal dependency is key. So far Türkiye has been opposed to this both domestically and internationally; indeed, it did not sign up to the tripling renewables pledge at COP28, even though that target was aligned with Türkiye’s own renewable targets, because the text referred to “coal phase-down”. Türkiye moving past its opposition and opening up to a dialogue on a just transition away from coal would be a significant victory for the climate.
There are many reasons a country may want to host the UN climate summit. Foremost among those reasons, and at the heart of the UN process that decides COP hosts, should be the drive to lead national and global conversations that make a real difference in tackling the climate crisis.
The post Climate is MIA in Australia and Turkiye’s bids to host COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate is MIA in Australia and Türkiye’s bids to host COP31
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