Last fall, the United Nations convened a major bi-annual conference focused on protecting the world's biodiversity – that's the vast array of animals, plants, waters, and other natural systems that sustain our planet and our very existence. The conference, known formally as the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16 for short, succeeded on some fronts. But it fell short in other areas, and left some critical work unfinished. In particular, the conference ended without an agreement about how the nations of the world will finance the work that needs to happen to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. So next week, the conference will reconvene in Rome, Italy, to resume those negotiations and hopefully nail down a plan to raise the funds required for nature's future.

Today's episode features a conversation with Andrew Deutz, WWF's managing director for global policy and partnerships. Andrew is an expert on conservation finance and he'll walk through the key issues facing negotiators as COP16 resumes.

Links for More Info:

Andrew Deutz bio

CBD COP16.2

WWF COP16 Explainer

REPORT: "Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap"

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Preview

0:21 Intro

2:06 Refresher on COP16 in Colombia

4:01 Progress for Indigenous peoples

5:08 Progress on nature targets

6:28 New fund for digital sequence information

9:45 Disagreements on finance plan

13:16 How much money do we need to protect nature?

20:37 Where will nature funding come from?

22:09 Key hurdles for negotiators in Rome

27:36 What's at stake for people in these negotiations?

30:24 Outro