The Biodiversity Summit did reach consensus to create the "Cali Fund" that will establish payments for the use of digital genetic sequences and guarantee the distribution of benefits for biodiversity.

COP16 "came to an end" on Saturday in the Colombian city of Cali after more than ten hours of intricate negotiations on the financing of the roadmap to save nature by 2030, confirmed to AFP the president of the summit, Susana Muhamad. "It's over (...) the Colombian government made a great mobilization, the people of Colombia put everything, there was a very good atmosphere but in the end it depends on the parties and the negotiation process," said Muhamad, with a tired face and watery eyes.

Earlier, Colombia's environment minister had suspended the conference due to a lack of quorum and the few delegates still in the room were awaiting instructions. "Now we have to move on and work with what we have," she added. According to spokesman David Ainsworth, COP16 was only "suspended" and will resume on a date yet to be determined.

The mission of COP16, two years after the Kunming-Montreal agreement at COP15 in the Canadian city, was to boost the world's timid efforts to implement this roadmap designed to save the planet and living beings from deforestation, overexploitation, climate change and pollution, all caused by human activity. But after 12 days of negotiations that began on October 21, the presidency failed to convince rich, emerging and developing countries to give in on the two most tense points: what will be the rules for monitoring the application of this roadmap and how to achieve the goal of increasing global spending to US$ 200 billion annually to implement it.

Although some observers consider the result a failure, the president applauded two decisions reached during the sleepless night in Cali: the approval of a fund for profits derived from genetic data from nature and the creation of a body to give a permanent voice to indigenous people.

"Governments presented plans in Cali to protect nature, but they were unable to mobilise the money to actually do it," said An Lambrechts, head of the Greenpeace delegation at COP16.

Under the motto "Peace with Nature," Colombia held its largest biodiversity summit in history, with 23,000 registered delegates and a festive, open-to-the-public "green zone" in the city center, which countered closed-door discussions. It also kept a guerrilla group at bay that threatened the conference.