WATCH: State Department applauds UN biodiversity agreement

The Biden administration is applauding a biodiversity agreement after negotiators reached a deal at a U.N. conference early Monday that would represent the most significant effort to protect the world’s lands and oceans and provide critical financing to save biodiversity in the developing world.

Watch Price’s remarks in the player above.

“The global biodiversity framework is the turning point we think we need to combat the biodiversity crisis and leave a better world for future generations,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

The global framework comes on the day the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to end in Montreal. China, which holds the presidency at this conference, released a new draft on Sunday that gave the sometimes contentious talks much-needed momentum.

The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30 percent of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30. Currently, 17 percent of terrestrial and 10 percent of marine areas are protected.

“Achieving this … is not only important for biodiversity, but for also supporting nature’s resilience and climate impacts, and contributing to a sustainable and resilient global economy,” Price said.

The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework asks for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.

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Financing emerged late in the talks and risked derailing an agreement. Several African countries held up the final deal for almost nine hours. They wanted the creation of a new fund for biodiversity but agreed to the creation of one under the pre-existing Global Environmental Facility.

Then as the agreement was about to be adopted, Congo stood up and said it opposed the deal because it didn’t set up that special biodiversity fund to provide developing countries with $100 billion by 2030.

China’s negotiator swept aside the opposition and the documents that make up the framework were adopted. The convention’s legal expert ruled Congo never formally objected to the document. Several other African countries, including Cameroon and Uganda, sided with Congo and said they would lodge a complaint.

Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades – a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

But they struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

The financing has been among the most contentious issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.