By Oliver Griffin
CALI, Colombia (Reuters) – Developing countries should be allowed to draw on international reserves allocated by the International Monetary Fund and unused by richer nations, to pay for initiatives to protect nature, Mexico’s new environment secretary said on Wednesday.
Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Alicia Barcena spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the United Nations COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, where negotiations around financing for poorer countries have slowed down talks.
The reserves, called special drawing rights, are financial instruments that supplement countries’ foreign exchange reserves and reduce their reliance on more expensive sources of debt, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Many developed countries do not use their SDRs, Barcena said, saying developing nations should have access to the unused resources.
“Those special drawing rights that aren’t used by developed countries, which could be given to developing countries, do not generate debt. They give you fiscal liquidity and the ideal would be for them to be earmarked for protecting biodiversity,” Barcena said.
Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum, a noted climate scientist, named Barcena – who served as foreign minister under previous leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – as the government’s environment chief in a nod towards improving the country’s environmental policy.
Barcena praised Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s proposed debt-for-nature swaps, saying the region would benefit from such agreements geared towards adaptation and restoration of nature.
“Petro’s proposal is very good, we must now develop it,” she said.
The environment secretary also called for stronger implementation of the Escazu agreement, a 2018 accord among Latin American and Caribbean countries to better protect environmentalists, among other things.
According to reports from British advocacy group Global Witness, Latin America is the world’s deadliest region for environmentalists, where dozens of defenders are murdered each year.
Preventative action must be taken to keep environmental defenders safe, Barcena added.
“We cannot take care of environmental defenders once they have been killed, or once they have been kidnapped,” she said.
(Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Jake Spring and Marguerita Choy)
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