What did COP17 in Yerevan agree?
Negotiators from nearly 200 countries met in Yerevan, Armenia, for two weeks and wrapped up early on Saturday, 31 October. The final session ran hours past the scheduled close before countries adopted the main texts of a new action plan for nature, according to the BBC and Carbon Brief.
This was the first global review of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the 2022 agreement often described as the Paris Agreement for nature. The framework, adopted by 196 parties, set 23 targets for the end of the decade. Those include protecting 30% of land and seas, restoring degraded ecosystems and cutting subsidies that harm nature.
COP16 in Cali, Colombia, ran so far over time that it lost quorum and had to resume in Rome. In Yerevan, delegates signed off on all the major negotiating texts. The closing plenary lasted almost 12 hours and ended with a vote to hold COP18 in Quito, Ecuador, in 2028.
COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, Armenia's environment minister, closed the session with three words that the BBC recorded: "And that's it. Perfect." The package includes a decision on resource mobilisation, revised text on marine biodiversity, a review of planning and reporting rules, and further work on genetic data.
One of the less contested texts covered planning, monitoring, reporting and review. It welcomes countries' efforts to submit information on time. But it notes with concern the institutional, technical, capacity and resource challenges that got in the way, Carbon Brief reported. The IUCN's Victoria Romero said the discussions were largely process-oriented, with little mandate to reopen the monitoring framework that was settled in Rome.
Did COP17 admit the 2030 nature targets will be missed?
Yes. The global review is the formal stocktake negotiated in Yerevan. It notes with deep concern that the 2030 mission and its targets will not be achieved unless action is rapidly accelerated. It urges countries to accelerate action, including by increased ambition in addressing the gaps.
The evidence came from the UN's first global report on collective progress, published on 24 September. That report found the framework had generated unprecedented interest in biodiversity. It concluded that the 2030 targets and mission will not be reached unless collective implementation speeds up. Carbon Brief and Mongabay both report that 22 of the 23 targets are behind schedule.
Some goals are further behind than others. Fewer than 20% of the world's land is protected, against a 30% goal, according to Mongabay. The Guardian reports that the UK is on course to meet just three of the 23 targets. Governments also look likely to preserve a record of never having met a target in the convention's 34-year history.
The review's evidence base is also patchy. According to figures the UN gave Carbon Brief, 45% of countries published national biodiversity strategies in time to be counted. Some 83% submitted at least one national target and 66% filed a new national report. Reporting gaps make it harder to judge whether money and policy are reaching the ground.
Context matters here. Scientists describe the world as being in a sixth mass extinction. Species are disappearing about 100 times faster than the natural rate because of human activity, the BBC reported. The framework was meant to bend that curve by 2030, which is why a review that documents 22 lagging targets carries weight beyond the negotiating room.
The review sets no new targets. It urges countries to strengthen national plans and to close the gaps the report identified by 2030. Monitoring will rest on the same reporting cycle that produced the patchy data behind this review. The next stocktake will depend on the national reports countries submit in the meantime.
Why is money still the sticking point at COP17?
Finance dominated the two weeks. Under the 2022 framework, developed countries committed to at least $20bn a year for nature by 2025. That figure was meant to rise to $30bn a year by 2030, with $200bn a year expected from all sources by the end of the decade. The first deadline has passed without being met.
The numbers show the size of the gap. The OECD estimates that total biodiversity finance reached no more than $92bn in 2025. International flows likely fell $4bn short of the $20bn goal, Mongabay reported. Delegates in Yerevan also pointed to falling aid budgets and a 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period, according to Carbon Brief.
New pledges announced around the summit reached roughly $1.8bn, Mongabay reported. The Netherlands committed $500m to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, and the Global Environment Facility assembled another $500m. Germany announced a €300m package, while the Value Nature Fund put €300m into regenerative farming and forestry. The BBC put the total at more than $1bn, half of it from philanthropists including Leonardo DiCaprio's Re:wild.
The harder argument was about who pays next. A bloc of developed countries pushed to broaden the donor base. It wanted emerging economies such as China, India, Saudi Arabia and Qatar added, even though they are still classed as developing under the UN convention. The compromise lets countries that want to be listed as donors signal interest through confidential bilateral consultations before COP18.
The legal backdrop explains the sensitivity. Article 20 of the convention says developed countries shall provide new and additional financial resources. Other countries may voluntarily assume the same obligations, and the donor list is supposed to be reviewed periodically. Ireland's nature minister, Christopher O'Sullivan, told Carbon Brief the EU did not want to pull back. But he argued the list had not changed in 20 years.
Switzerland called the resulting text "super, mega-delicate", while Kenya described it as having "no major winner or loser", Carbon Brief reported. Countries also agreed criteria for a permanent financial mechanism after 2030, but deferred its institutional structure to COP18. A new fund under the convention, which biodiverse countries have sought since 2022, did not materialise.
What happened to the Cali Fund?
The Cali Fund was the centrepiece of COP16. It was designed to collect money from companies that use digital sequence information, the genetic data derived from plants, animals and microbes. A share of the proceeds would go to the communities that safeguard those resources. Contributions were made voluntary, with a goal of about $1bn a year and at least half earmarked for Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Two years on, the fund is close to empty. Mongabay reported that just over $10,000 had been deposited by the close of COP17. The BBC noted that estimates once suggested the fund could raise up to $3.6bn a year. Yet only $10,000 had been pledged when the summit opened.
Countries were meant to settle the mechanics in Yerevan, including which companies should pay and at what rate. Instead, most of that work was pushed into intersessional negotiations before COP18, along with a methodology for reviewing the fund. A 209-page secretariat study on thresholds and contribution rates arrived only days before the talks began, Carbon Brief reported.
The delay drew sharp criticism. Siva Thambisetty, an Indigenous representative on the fund's steering committee, told Carbon Brief that the Cali Fund is on life support. Industry groups also floated a separate philanthropic vehicle, the Biodiversity Foundation Initiative. Organisers say it would complement rather than replace the Cali Fund. Indigenous leaders said they were being lobbied to support it.
Lobbying shaped the debate in other ways. The investigative outlet DeSmog reported that the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations pushed for a radical rethink of the fund's terms. It cited documents it had reviewed. The industry group said it supported the convention's goals while arguing the fund's modalities needed significant review, Carbon Brief reported. Charities including Amnesty International warned that corporate lobbying was crowding out affected communities.
What was watered down in the final COP17 texts?
Subsidy reform was the clearest example. An earlier draft of the global review urged stronger action on harmful incentives. The final version only encourages countries to accelerate implementation in accordance with national circumstances. Governments spend as much as $1.8tn a year on subsidies that can harm biodiversity. The framework calls for at least $500bn a year to be cut by 2030. Carbon Brief found in July that 84% of countries missed the 2025 deadline to identify such subsidies.
Outside the negotiating rooms, pressure came from business and research groups. More than 130 companies and financial organisations signed an open letter before the summit calling for reform. A Conservation International report on 19 October estimated that harmful subsidies generate $11-24.7tn of hidden environmental and social damage each year. The International Institute for Sustainable Development co-chairs a new Friends of Target 18 group with Colombia and Finland. It found countries were not on track and plans a first in-person meeting in May 2027.
The Armenian presidency made incentive reform one of four flagship priorities. It also launched the Yerevan Call on incentives positive to biodiversity, a political declaration intended to increase action on the subsidy target.
The Guardian reported that Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Russia watered down ambition in the final agreement. The BBC reported that a small group including Saudi Arabia and Russia frustrated approval of scientific reports at the summit. France's ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, said the attacks on science had bothered her a lot, AFP reported.
Marine biodiversity text lost most of its references to the High Seas Treaty. The treaty entered into force in January and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. Russia opposed welcoming the treaty, so the final decision only takes note of it. Parties did create an informal advisory group on marine areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Mentions of Indigenous peoples, women and youth were removed from parts of the marine decision. A Chilean delegate drew applause when she objected, Carbon Brief reported. "We are erasing with our elbow what we have just written," she said.
Are biodiversity credits part of the COP17 deal?
Biodiversity credits and offsets are recognised in Target 19 as one route to mobilising resources. They featured prominently in Yerevan as public finance fell short. On 27 October, the EU environment commissioner, Jessika Roswall, launched an informal group called Friends of Credits for Nature and Biodiversity with France and Peru. A dozen other governments, from Canada and Japan to Botswana and Indonesia, said they welcomed it, Carbon Brief reported.
China told the summit it would test nature markets with a pilot in Sichuan. Peru asked for a study into whether credits and offsets deliver genuine additional conservation, a request that made it into the final resource mobilisation decision. That gives auditors a hook to test the market's claims rather than accept them.
Not everyone is convinced. Indigenous leaders at the summit opposed using popular species as tradable credits. Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network called biodiversity credits a violation of the sacred. He said nature is not an asset class, according to Carbon Brief. Countries are expected to mobilise private money, while Peru's study will test whether the credits add real conservation.
What happens after COP17?
The next test comes quickly. Countries meet for the annual climate summit, COP31, next month, and its scientific body has faced friction of its own. The IPCC has spent the past month struggling to pass scientific reports and secure funding, the BBC reported. Prof David Lee of Manchester University, who has worked on previous IPCC reports, called the manoeuvring a blatant political move.
Biodiversity negotiators then have until COP18 in Quito in 2028 to settle the finance mechanism, the Cali Fund rules and the review methodology. Pressure to reform the summit system is growing. Panama's environment minister, Juan Carlos Navarro, told AFP that the COP process was designed to fail. He argued that consensus rules let a single delegation block agreement, and called for one combined environmental summit each year. Inger Andersen, executive director of UN Environment Programme, said the environmental agenda is very cluttered and suggested trimming overlap between conventions.
Andersen also framed the stakes in economic terms: "Nature is not a luxury we protect when economies can afford it." UNEP estimates that finance flowing to activities that damage nature runs at about $7.3tn a year. That is roughly $30 of harm for every $1 of protection spending, a ratio Greenpeace cited at the summit.
The UK's nature envoy, Ruth Davis, acknowledged that the meetings can be "extremely frustrating" but pointed to implementation happening in many countries. She said the system has to deliver outcomes for people, or governments will lose confidence in it. For now, COP17 has kept the 2030 framework alive, given ministers a documented list of shortfalls and left the money question open.