Delegates from nearly 200 nations adopted agreements at COP17 in Yerevan on Oct. 30, AFP reported, as a U.N. review found fewer than half of assessed national targets on track.
AFP said negotiations lasted two weeks and final texts were not immediately available after the adoption. The summit served as the first global review of collective progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Adopted in December 2022, the framework sets 23 targets for 2030 and four longer-term goals for 2050. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said close to 90% of its 196 parties had set national biodiversity targets. Fewer than half of the national targets assessed were on track, and current pledges fell short of Target 3’s call to conserve at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.
The CBD said national plans did not cover the full scope of global targets and identified gaps in finance, implementation capacity, cooperation and data. Its assessment also names land- and sea-use change, unsustainable exploitation of species, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species among the pressures driving biodiversity loss, alongside economic and financial activities.
“Nature won’t thrive on good intentions,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in the CBD’s assessment announcement.
The Yerevan Declaration, adopted at a leaders’ meeting on Oct. 16, restated the aim of halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 and the vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050. It called for stronger national action and more predictable, accessible public and private finance, including support for developing countries.
How conservation costs should be shared also surfaced in the negotiations. AFP reported that the European Union pressed wealthy emerging economies, including China, to contribute to conservation finance. The dispute follows the 2024 COP16 meeting in Colombia, which ended without a conservation finance agreement, AFP reported. AFP reported that talks resumed in Rome and reached a deal in February 2025. EconoTimes previously covered the COP17 dispute over funding and nature-related subsidies.
AFP also reported that Ecuador was selected to host the next biodiversity talks in 2028.