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COP 16 - WORLD CONFERENCE ON BIODIVERSITY

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Cali (Colombia)  ||  | 21 October 2024
Iniziative (EN) - Maison de la Paix (EN)

A delegation from the "United States of the World" and the ‘Fondazione Mediterraneo’ participated in the event, which brought together delegates from 200 governments and around ten thousand representatives of various organisations in southwest Colombia.
This year's COP16 takes place in Cali, capital of the department of Valle del Cauca (Colombia), between 21 October and 1 November 2024.
The slogan ‘Peace with Nature’ is a call for reflection to improve the relationship we have with the environment, to rethink an economic model that does not prioritise extraction, overexploitation and pollution of nature.
"This World Conference on Biodiversity - said Secretary General Michele Capasso - is one of the last opportunities to preserve the inestimable cultural heritage of the planet, and it is being held in a country and a city where the contradictions in terms of respect for Creation are most evident. Colombia is, in fact, an unparalleled treasure chest of biodiversity. According to the most up-to-date data, it is the second largest country in the world. The only one on the continent where practically all the natural environments of South America exist: the Andes and the Amazon, the Atlantic and the Pacific, the desert, the savannah and the great plains, the Caribbean islands and the long rivers".
But Colombia is also, and by far, the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders: 73 murders in 2023, 40 per cent of all those on the planet. They are those who fight against illegal mining, drug trafficking, monocultures, deforestation. For the first time, South America is hosting a world intervention on the environment, in anticipation of next year's climate conference in Belém, Brazil, and this is taking place in a city that symbolises Colombian violence. For this very reason, in Colombia, ‘COP16’ is seen as a great opportunity. It raises hopes, of which both the Church and, more generally, civil society and popular movements are spokesmen. The Colombian Church has a massive presence at the conference. The programme includes conferences, forums, congresses, exhibitions and documentary screenings, organised in particular by the Archdiocese of Cali, the Episcopal Conference of Colombia, the Episcopal Council of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) and the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (Repam). Also present in Cali is a representation of the Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio, Msgr. Paolo Rudelli.