Minister Habet Says COP16 Wasn’t a Complete Failure

Last month, leaders from around the globe converged in Cali, Colombia for COP16. The summit aimed to ramp up biodiversity protection and secure twenty billion dollars in funding for preservation efforts. Unfortunately, many participants fell short, raising only about four hundred million dollars—far from the ambitious target. Today, we caught up with the Minister of Sustainable Development, Orlando Habet, who shared his thoughts on the conference. He acknowledged that while not all goals were met, it wasn’t a complete failure.

 

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development

“If you look at what you go for, And it all depends on how much time you spend. you can get back something.  At the global level some people are disappointed because COP16 didn’t produce what they wanted, especially the twenty billion that everybody’s looking for. But I think there are certain solutions that came about for those who were seeking country level support. I think many of them got some. I think for Belize, we got a few commitments as a region with CARICOM also, and as a region with Central America SICA, we also got some.  Looking at the Climate Change COP which is much bigger being held in Baku, in Azerbaijan the Climate Change COP to me, is a little bit more commercial. It’s larger, it’s very impersonal, and so you really have to go there with focus on what you want to achieve. For me though, at all the COPs, I try to make certain that we have some bilateral meetings. With Norway, with the U. S., with Canada, and so that you can have additional sources for projects, apart from what the Climate Change Fund will do.  Success stories for Belize, for example, our CEO is on the adaptation fund board, on the global adaptation fund board. We were able in the last year or so to be able to bring about eighteen million for adaptation projects in Belize. We have projects with the GCF, the Green Climate Fund, which we are pursuing. PACT is the accredited agency, so we are trying to see how we can locate some funds for certain projects. There are several projects in the pipeline which we are trying to get along with the support from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance. And so, we can’t just leave it alone. We have to continue pursuing it so that then at the end we can get the funding that we are looking for.”