Nearly 200 nations struck a hard-fought agreement at the UN biodiversity summit in Yerevan, recommitting to halt nature loss by 2030, but critical funding gaps and political tensions lingered as delegates exited the talks.
The COP17 summit in Armenia concluded with a renewed pledge to meet the 2030 goal of protecting 30% of land and oceans, but progress on financing conservation efforts remained stalled. Delegates from nearly 200 countries approved key texts late Friday, though the final version of the document was not immediately available, according to AFP. And that's it. Perfect,
said COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan, as negotiations ended hours after the scheduled close. Matevosyan, who is Armenia’s environment minister, emphasized the need to bridge differences
and praised negotiators for working late into the night behind closed doors. As a politician I must tell you that negotiations are never smooth…
he said, acknowledging the challenges of reconciling divergent interests.
Nations Face Divisions Over Funding Gaps
Despite the agreement, nations faced sharp divisions over how to close a $700 billion annual funding shortfall for conservation. Governments still spend about $2.4 trillion annually on subsidies for industries like fossil fuels, which harm ecosystems, according to AFP. The EU pushed for wealthy emerging economies like China to fund global conservation, a divisive topic at COP17. That’s a really difficult one to untangle,
said Broekhoven.
The Cali Fund, designed to channel corporate profits from genetic material into conservation, raised just $10,000 by the summit’s end—far short of its $1 billion annual target when it launched in early 2025. It’s glacial progress,
one negotiator from a developed country told AFP, underscoring the challenge of mobilizing private sector support.
Subsidies and Scientific Disputes
Negotiations on subsidy reform saw limited progress, with governments making little headway on reducing financial incentives for harmful activities. This UN conference highlighted concerns about political challenges in biodiversity negotiations, said Prof David Lee, from Manchester University, who has worked on previous reports. Researchers encountered pushback, as a few nations were accused of blocking acceptance of the U.N.-backed biodiversity body’s key findings. Lee criticized the blatant political move,
warning that such tactics threaten the integrity of scientific reporting.
Pledges and the Road Ahead
The summit saw early advancements, indicating the adoption of preliminary decisions and commitments of hundreds of millions for nature. However, the UN emphasized that these commitments fall far short of the money needed. We cannot just plod on to 2030 without a course correction; nature is critical to all life on Earth,
said Catherine Weller from Fauna and Flora. The summit also selected Ecuador to host the next biodiversity talks in 2028, following a secret vote where the South American country beat Panama. The COP17 presidency is really keen to come to a conclusion and to not drag it on for too long. Of course, we don’t want that to be based then on lowering ambition, there is always a risk of that,
said Broekhoven.
With species vanishing 100 times faster than natural rates due to human actions, scientists note, activists and experts emphasized the need for immediate action. With the next major biodiversity conference approaching, the challenge remains to translate political commitments into tangible conservation outcomes. The summit’s legacy will depend on whether the funding gap can be bridged and whether political will matches the scale of the crisis.