TWN Info Service on Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge (Feb26/01)
13 February 2026
Third World Network

Briefing Note for SBI-6: Agenda Item 3(a) Resource Mobilization

Burdensome Debt is a Major Barrier to Protecting the World’s Biodiversity

Background: Debt represents a critical, yet often overlooked, structural driver of biodiversity destruction and a key barrier to effective implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2024, CBD Parties asked the Secretariat of the Convention to commission a study on the relationship between debt sustainability and the implementation of the Convention. In January 2026, a draft of that report was released, with a peer review process extending until March 20th, 2026. Reviews can be sent to secretariat@cbd.int.

There are three key implications for the resource mobilization agenda item at SBI-6:

1. The report clearly states that debt and fiscal consolidation limit finance for biodiversity, hindering implementation of the Convention. This means that debt, tax, and other issues of fiscal space will need to remain high on the resource mobilization agenda.
2. The report has a crucial gap. The analysis sidelines a key channel through which debt affects biodiversity: how debt service pressures—experienced unequally due to structural imbalances in the international financial system—push countries into biodiversity-harming sectors to earn export revenue and maintain financial stability, constraining economic transformation. Addressing this oversight is essential to assess the implications of debt on biodiversity and to inform appropriate policy responses.
3. Peer review has not yet taken place. As such, Parties should not prejudge the final report and should not make recommendations arising from the findings of this study until the evidence has been subject to review, including more fulsome engagement with the impact of debt as a driver of biodiversity loss. Preliminary observations to guide further work would be more appropriate (see below). The final peer-reviewed study will be made available to Parties for their consideration at SBI-7 in order for it to make the appropriate recommendations to the COP.

What the study makes clear:

Debt constrains critical public spending on biodiversity action. The report concludes that “biodiversity finance is predominantly a public finance issue,” echoing previous expert reports which state that increased public funding and capacity will be necessary to achieve CBD objectives.^[i] The impacts on implementation include “weakened environmental oversight, reduced protected-area funding, and increased recourse to environmentally harmful subsidies as governments seek short-term revenue or expenditure relief,” among others.^[ii] As a result, “biodiversity implementation remains directly exposed to fiscal conditions, budgetary […], and debt service pressures.”^[iii]

The impact of debt-related innovative financial mechanisms in relieving these pressures is limited.  The report highlights the limits of private financial mechanisms in relieving these pressures, finding that debt-for-nature swaps have modest impact on relieving debt stocks and service burdens.^[iv] It also notes that many of the most debt-distressed countries lack access to market-rate instruments including sovereign green or blue bonds without credit enhancement or concessional finance.^[v] Importantly, the summary of the key findings of the study contained in CBD/SBI6/2 does not reflect these limitations, and consequently overestimates the utility of such mechanisms. These issues further highlight the need to have a clear understanding of the limitations of such approaches in addressing both debt pressures and in their ability to generate funding for biodiversity.

Where the study should be expanded:

This study successfully demonstrates how debt can constrain biodiversity spending, yet it does not engage head on with how debt can drive biodiversity loss. While the report recognizes how high debt, high interest rates, and demand for foreign exchange can generate pressures to expand biodiversity-destroying extractive sectors, this point is buried in the report rather than central to the analysis. The result is that the report strongly connects debt with budgetary constraints, but is less clear on how debt impacts the continuation and expansion of extractive frontiers. In line with the extensive academic and policy literature, more attention should be paid to how the conditions on sovereign debt often incentivize or require ecologically-damaging resource extraction for export in order to earn foreign currency and manage balance of payments issues, constraining economic transformation.^[vi]

The role of debt in driving biodiversity loss warrants evaluation as a central transmission channel in the report. Effective implementation of the Convention requires addressing this significant driver of biodiversity loss. Evidence on this point will support future efforts to identify barriers to the implementation of the Convention. These dynamics are relevant even beyond the most highly-indebted and revenue-constrained countries. Many nations who are not in formal debt distress face constraints in reforming extractive sectors due to unequal global economic structures and the threats of credit rating downgrades, capital flight, and subsequent risks to financial stability.

Finally, though the study does not intend to propose solutions to the problem of debt’s impact on biodiversity loss, it could go further to point to the mechanisms that make such tradeoffs—between social and ecological stability and creditor repayment—routine. On this point, the report could go beyond discussing the G20 Common Framework restructuring to include other forms of debt arbitration such as those with private creditors.

In this regard, the draft decision on resource mobilization should: 

Support the peer review process. Peer reviews of the study are due 20 March 2026. Until then, no conclusions, endorsements, or policy directions should be taken on the study. This will allow for the study findings to be reviewed, strengthened, and fully considered.

Call for continued engagement with structural economic conditions that shape harmful flows of finance, and therefore biodiversity outcomes. Parties should emphasize that debt defaults and restructuring systemically increase biodiversity pressures and that addressing these is central to achieving the transformative change called for by IPBES and for the effective implementation of the Convention.

Explore alternative debt-management pathways that do not rely on biodiversity-harming resource extraction. It is critical to examine and advance options that enable countries to manage debt and expand fiscal space without resorting to extractive, export-oriented activities that undermine biodiversity. This includes reforming the institutions that financially penalize action on biodiversity or that allow environmental degradation to proceed unchecked during precisely the periods when countries are most vulnerable. The absence of biodiversity safeguards in debt restructuring mechanisms is a policy gap requiring urgent attention.

Call for coordination across UN conventions and international processes. Parties should emphasize the importance of coherent and coordinated engagement across UN Conventions, including the UN Tax Convention, to ensure that the aims of Rio Conventions, like the CBD, are fully integrated.

^[i] CBD/SBI/3/5/Add.3, p. 9.

^[ii] CBD/SBI/6/INF/15, p. 14-15.

^[iii] CBD/SBI/6/INF/15, p. 11-12.

^[iv] CBD/SBI/6/INF/15, p. 11-12.

^[v] CBD/SBI/6/INF/15, p. 19.

^[vi] See: Dempsey, J. et al. (2021). Biodiversity targets will not be met without debt and tax justice. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 6, 237–239. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01619-5; Dempsey, J. et al. (2024). Exporting extinction: How the international financial system constrains biodiverse futures. Climate and Community Institute; UBC Centre for Climate Justice; Third World Network. https://climateandcommunity.org/research/exporting-extinction/; Ray, R., and Simmons, B. A. (2024). Now or never: Mobilizing capital for climate and conservation in a debt-constrained world. Boston University Global Development Policy Center. https://www.bu.edu/gdp/files/2024/02/GEGI-CDEP-Report-FIN.pdf; Svartzman, R., and Althouse, J. (2022). Greening the international monetary system? Not without addressing the political ecology of global imbalances. Review of International Political Economy, 29(3), 844–869. https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rripxx/v29y2022i3p844-869.html.