The UN biodiversity summit known as COP16 officially opened in Colombia in October 2024, and negotiating countries can agree on a path forward to safeguarding the planet. Considered the world’s most important event to conserve biodiversity, the summit is taking place in Cali, the third largest city of the South American nation, and will host some 15,000 attendees, including a dozen heads of State, 103 ministers and over 1,000 international journalists. The summit aimed to promote international cooperation, agree on investments to protect ecosystems and strengthen global environmental policies, COP16 takes as its roadmap the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (GBF), a landmark plan to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity for 2030, adopted at COP15 in Canada.