Nearly 200 nations have adopted hard-fought agreements at the UN biodiversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia, in a late push to get the world’s nature goals back on track by 2030.
The texts were approved in overtime on Friday, 30 October, after almost two weeks of tense negotiations at COP17, the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Delegates applauded as COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, Armenia’s environment minister, brought down the gavel — but the final versions of the documents were not immediately available, so the detailed wording behind the headline agreement was still unpublished when the decision was announced.
In short: countries agreed to push harder to rescue a landmark nature pact that the UN itself says is falling behind. Whether that push turns into money, subsidy reform and protected land and sea in time for 2030 is the question the Yerevan texts leave partly open.
What happened in Yerevan
COP17 ran from 19 to 30 October in Armenia’s capital, with around 70 ministers joining the final week of talks alongside indigenous leaders and civil society campaigners urging faster action. The session ran past its planned close on Friday, with a plenary moved to the evening, before the crucial texts were approved to applause.
“And that’s it. Perfect,” Matevosyan said as he closed the decision, according to reports from the hall.
The summit was the first global review — the first formal stocktake — of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the pact adopted in 2022 that set 23 targets for 2030 and four longer-term goals for 2050. Its best-known ambition is “30 by 30”: conserving 30 per cent of the world’s land and sea by 2030.
Ahead of the summit, the UN warned bluntly that countries would fail to meet the 2030 goal unless they urgently corrected course. A draft text circulating before the final decision had called on countries to “accelerate” their efforts to keep the pact alive, and stressed that “increased action” was needed against the root drivers of nature loss.
Why the 2030 goals are off track
The warning from Yerevan was not abstract. Most of the framework’s objectives are falling short, including protecting 30 per cent of land and oceans, tackling pollution, and providing poorer countries with greater conservation finance.
Progress reporting tells a mixed story. Nearly 90 per cent of the 196 parties to the convention have set national biodiversity targets, close to 60 per cent have developed national strategies and action plans, and more than 70 per cent have submitted national reports. Yet fewer than half of the national targets assessed by parties are on track, and ambition still falls short of the 30-by-30 goal.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it plainly to leaders in Yerevan: “Halfway to 2030, Yerevan is our moment of accountability.” As he reminded the summit, the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe depend on biodiversity — so a missed nature target is not only an environmental failure, but a practical one for food, water and health.
The money fight: subsidies and the $700 billion gap
Two money questions dominated the negotiations, and neither was fully settled in the headlines from Yerevan.
The first is harmful subsidies. Countries wrangled over reforming subsidies and incentives that encourage activities damaging to nature, such as fossil fuels, intensive agriculture and overfishing. Governments had pledged to reduce this spending but have made little progress, with an estimated $2.4 trillion still flowing every year to harmful subsidies. The 2022 framework already commits countries to cutting environmentally harmful subsidies by at least $500 billion worldwide by 2030.
Greenpeace International’s An Lambrechts said it was crucial that spending was switched to nature protection and restoration, adding: “Even though the agreed decision text expresses it in weak terms, COP17 saw important political momentum to address harmful financial incentives — including subsidies — and that’s urgently needed.”
The second is conservation finance itself. To restore degraded ecosystems, save endangered species and conserve forests, wetlands and other vital habitats, the world needs an estimated $700 billion more every year than it currently spends. The framework calls for at least $200 billion a year from all sources by 2030, including at least $30 billion a year in international biodiversity finance for developing countries.
The European Union led a charge for wealthy emerging economies such as China to join in paying for global conservation, a contentious issue at COP17. In a sign of possible compromise, a draft text circulated on 30 October invited countries outside the developed-country donor group to voluntarily join it — asking volunteers to “signal interest” rather than compelling any country to contribute.
The science row and the Cali Fund
Negotiators also feuded over science. A handful of countries were accused of stonewalling efforts to accept the benchmark findings of a UN-backed biodiversity body, with disputes over two scientific assessments on the overlap between the nature and climate crises and the economic forces driving nature loss. French Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut said: “The attacks on science have bothered me a lot.”
Efforts to refine the Cali Fund also proved difficult. The fund is a UN mechanism for sharing profits from corporations that use genetic data from plants and other organisms, designed to channel money to conservation in developing countries. It set out to raise $1 billion a year when it launched in early 2025. So far, it has attracted around $10,000 — a gap that shows how far the finance machinery still is from matching the ambition of the 2022 pact.
What the agreement does — and does not — settle
What Yerevan did settle is political: nearly 200 countries could still reach agreement, in overtime, on texts that say increased action is needed against the root drivers of nature loss, after a review that laid bare how far off track the 2030 targets are.
What it did not settle, on the evidence available when the gavel fell, is the detail. The draft “global review” text had proposed various options for achieving the 2030 goal, and it was not immediately clear which of those options made the final cut. The final versions of the documents were not immediately published, so readers should treat any claim about exact new commitments with caution until the texts themselves are public.
That caution is shared by conservation groups. Catherine Weller from Fauna and Flora said the text “needed to respond to the irrefutable evidence that we are off track for our 2030 deadline, and while not particularly exciting or detailed, it’s good news that countries could reach agreement.” Kirsty Leong of WWF International called it an outcome with “strengths and weaknesses, but, on balance, it’s a good outcome.”
Why it matters
Biodiversity loss is often described in abstract terms — species counts, hectares, percentages. The Yerevan talks matter because the drivers behind those numbers are economic: what governments subsidise, what companies pay for using nature, and what countries count as protected.
If harmful subsidies keep flowing at $2.4 trillion a year while conservation faces a $700 billion annual shortfall, the 30-by-30 target will remain a promise rather than a plan. If, instead, the Yerevan momentum turns into subsidy reform with dates attached, new finance, and national plans that match the scale of the targets, the first global review will have done its job.
The next test comes quickly. Delegates chose Ecuador to host the next UN biodiversity summit, COP18, in 2028 — by which point the 2030 deadline will be only two years away.
Timeline
- 2022: Countries adopt the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, with 23 targets for 2030, including protecting 30 per cent of land and sea.
- 2024: The last biodiversity summit, in Colombia, runs overtime over conservation finance and ends without a deal; negotiations resume in Rome in 2025, where an agreement is reached.
- Early 2025: The Cali Fund launches, aiming to raise $1 billion a year for conservation in developing countries.
- 19 October 2026: COP17 opens in Yerevan, Armenia, for the first global review of the framework.
- 27–30 October 2026: Around 70 ministers join the talks; negotiations run into overtime on the final day.
- 30 October 2026: Nearly 200 nations adopt the COP17 texts; delegates applaud as COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan brings down the gavel. Final document versions are not immediately available.
- 2028: Ecuador is chosen to host COP18, the next UN biodiversity summit.
What happens next
First, the final COP17 texts must be published, so governments, scientists and campaigners can check exactly what was agreed — and which options from the draft review survived. Second, countries must turn the call for “increased action” into updated national plans, subsidy reforms and finance pledges that can be tracked before 2030. Third, the Cali Fund’s slow start will face scrutiny: a mechanism designed to raise $1 billion a year cannot stay near $10,000 if it is to mean anything for developing countries.
For now, Yerevan’s achievement is real but limited: agreement was reached, the alarm about missed targets was not buried, and the political momentum on harmful subsidies was kept alive — in what even its supporters describe as weak terms.
FAQs
What is COP17?
COP17 is the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Held in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 to 30 October 2026, it carried out the first global review of the Kunming-Montreal nature framework agreed in 2022.
What did countries agree at COP17 in Yerevan?
Nearly 200 nations adopted hard-fought texts on 30 October 2026 aimed at getting the world’s 2030 nature goals back on track, calling for increased action against the root drivers of nature loss. The final versions of the documents were not immediately available, so exact wording was still unpublished at the time of the announcement.
What is the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework?
It is the world’s blueprint for halting and reversing nature loss, agreed in 2022, with 23 targets for 2030 and four longer-term goals for 2050. Its best-known target is “30 by 30” — conserving 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030.
Why are the 2030 nature goals off track?
Most targets are falling short, including protecting 30 per cent of land and oceans, tackling pollution and funding conservation in poorer countries. Fewer than half of assessed national targets are on track, harmful subsidies still total an estimated $2.4 trillion a year, and conservation faces an estimated $700 billion annual shortfall.
What is the Cali Fund?
The Cali Fund is a UN mechanism for sharing profits from companies that use genetic data from plants and other organisms, intended to support conservation in developing countries. It aimed to raise $1 billion a year from early 2025 but has so far attracted around $10,000.
Where will the next biodiversity summit be held?
Ecuador will host COP18, the next UN biodiversity summit, in 2028.
Related coverage
In a separate multilateral development this week, Canada and the EU launched a separate Alliance for the Future in Montreal, with new cooperation on trade, critical minerals and support for Ukraine. For more world news, see our World section.