The main question looming over the recently concluded United Nations Biodiversity Summit in Cali, Colombia, was a perennially vexing one: financing. In short, it was how to ensure that the governments of cash-strapped developing nations can access enough funding to stand up the projects, policies and capacity needed to slow the alarming pace of species loss. Unsurprising to many, the conference ended on Nov. 2 without an answer. The lone sign of progress was the launch of a fund designed to compensate biodiversity-rich countries for the use of digital-sequence information on genetic resources collected within their borders for use in such fields including agriculture, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Called the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the U.N. Convention on Biodiversity, an agreement forged at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the 12-day Cali meeting focused on funding work toward 23 specific “framework” targets set in 2022 at... [Log in to read more]