“HOPE”
The agreement on Thursday is seen as crucial to giving impetus to the 2022 deal, which saw countries agree to protect 30 per cent of the world’s land and seas.
Talks were also seen as a bellwether for international cooperation.
The meeting comes as countries face a range of challenges, from trade disputes and debt worries to the slashing of overseas aid – particularly by new US President Donald Trump.
Washington, which has not signed up to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity, sent no representatives to the meeting.
“Our efforts show that multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Ousseynou Kasse of Senegal, speaking on behalf of the Africa Group, also threw support behind global cooperation.
“We believe that this is the way that can save the world, and we must continue down this path,” he said.
Countries must be “accountable to our children, to the generations to come”, he added, saying he was thinking of what he would tell his own son when he returns home.
“I will give him good news that we have a compromise, we have a deal.”
The failure to finalise an agreement in Cali was the first in a string of disappointing outcomes at environmental summits last year.
A climate finance deal at COP29 in Azerbaijan in November was slammed by developing countries, while separate negotiations about desertification and plastic pollution stalled in December.
Muhamad, who has resigned as Colombia’s environment minister but stayed on to serve until after the Rome conference, was given a standing ovation as the talks drew to a close in the early hours of Friday.
