Action Was In Short Supply At Biodiversity Summit; Oil, Pesticide And Meat Lobbyists Weren't
Record numbers of business representatives and lobbyists had access to the UN’s latest biodiversity talks, analysis shows. In total 1,261 business and industry delegates registered for Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which ended in disarray and without significant progress on a number of key issues including nature funding, monitoring biodiversity loss and work on reducing environmentally harmful business subsidies. The number is more than double the 613 present at the UN’s previous biodiversity conference in 2022.
Overall, the number of attendees increased by 46%, making Cop16 the largest UN nature conference yet, although business and industry increased disproportionately. Industry groups working in pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, agrochemicals, food and beverage processing and tech all had more people registered to attend, according to the analysis by DeSmog.
Some question the influence that these companies might have had on the outcomes of the summit negotiations. Sectors with the greatest increases included food and beverage processing (up 460%) and tech (up 333%). The presence of agrochemical, pesticide and seed companies increased by 40% and 24% respectively since Cop15. “We certainly saw a stronger lobbying push for policies that favour agricultural productivity, and that clashed with the conservation goals and the position of civil society,” said Oscar Soria, director of the Common Initiative thinktank.
There was also a 25% increase in biotech representatives, who Soria said were “aggressive in pushing back on progress related to digital sequencing information (DSI)”. This was the voluntary agreement to make companies share profits from commercial discoveries derived from nature’s genetics. “Seems all of a sudden the private and business sector woke up and now they’re trying to defend their interests,” he said.
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