Swiss environmental organizations consider the financing plan adopted at the World Conference on Biodiversity in Rome to be inadequate. The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), however, is satisfied with the results of the conference when asked by the Keystone-SDA news agency.

According to the FOEN, important steps towards the global implementation of the framework were achieved with the resolutions on Friday.

Almost 200 countries agreed on a multi-year financing plan for the protection of nature and biodiversity at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16). Negotiations were interrupted in November 2024 because no agreement was reached before the end of the conference.

Specifically, the states have now decided that funding will be provided within the framework of the existing mechanism, as the FOEN explained on Friday. According to the Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland also advocated this. This is precisely what the environmental organizations Pro Natura, WWF Switzerland and BirdLife Switzerland criticize. The establishment of a fund on which the countries of the global South could have had a say failed due to resistance from industrialized countries, they wrote in a press release on Friday.

In addition, according to the FOEN, the decision to better coordinate the various conventions in the environmental sector and make use of synergies, which Switzerland had played a key role in promoting, was also adopted.

Praise for monitoring mechanisms

The monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the global biodiversity framework, which was also adopted at the conference, was received positively across the board. Countries must report on their progress in achieving the 23 goals by the next conference in Armenia in 2026. According to the FOEN, Switzerland has advocated the establishment of such a monitoring mechanism as part of its negotiating mandate.

The nature conservation organizations also described this decision as “pleasing”. “The nature conservation organizations expect Switzerland to participate constructively in the financing process and submit a report that uses the newly defined indicators to show that it is working effectively to conserve its highly endangered biodiversity,” commented Friedrich Wulf, International Biodiversity Policy Project Manager at Pro Natura, in a press release.