Nearly 200 countries agreed the key parts of a new action plan to halt the loss of nature early on Saturday morning in Yerevan, Armenia, hours after the United Nations biodiversity talks were due to finish, the BBC reported. Delegates had argued for nearly two weeks at the COP17 summit over how to rescue a landmark 2022 deal that is falling badly behind.
Source: BBC News
"And that's it. Perfect," the meeting president, Hambardzum Matevosyan, said as the gavel fell on the documents, France 24 reported. AFP reported that the texts were adopted in overtime on Friday, October 30, after a plenary planned for the early afternoon was moved to the evening, and that the final wording of the documents was not immediately public.
Source: AFP via Pollar News
A deal built on an admission: the world is falling behind
The agreement follows the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, in which the same countries committed to halt and reverse the decline of nature, including protecting 30 per cent of the world's land and seas by 2030. As part of this week's deal, countries acknowledged they were falling behind, the BBC reported. According to the UN this week, the world is on track to achieve just one of the framework's targets.
Scientists say the world is in a sixth mass extinction event, with species becoming extinct at 100 times the natural rate because of human activities. One measure of progress countries could point to was land restoration: 623 million acres — yaani 252 million hectares, an area bigger than Greenland — of degraded land have been put under protection, according to the BBC.
Money remains the barrier
Countries recognised that the main barrier to faster action is money, the BBC reported. The 2022 framework calls for mobilising 200 billion US dollars a year for biodiversity by 2030, including 30 billion dollars a year in international finance, and for cutting incentives harmful to nature by at least 500 billion dollars a year by 2030 — yaani 200 billion dollars is 200 arab dollars every year, and the harmful-subsidy cut sought is 500 arab dollars a year. The overall biodiversity finance gap has been estimated at 700 billion dollars a year.
At this meeting, more than 1 billion dollars was pledged, with half of that coming from philanthropists including Leonardo DiCaprio's Re:wild organisation, the BBC reported. A separate fund meant to pay for conservation from the commercial use of genetic data, the Cali Fund, had attracted only about 10,000 dollars against a goal of 1 billion dollars a year when the meeting began, France 24 reported.
Source: France 24 via Newsy Today
The central review decision, called the Yerevan Pathway, acknowledges insufficient progress and gives countries guidance to accelerate action, including on finance and harmful subsidies, a WWF account of the outcome said. Before the deal, AFP reported the European Union wanted wealthy emerging economies such as China to help fund conservation, while developing countries sought greater support from richer states.
Source: WWF via Harava News
Governments must now update national plans, direct budgets and reform harmful incentives at home. Delegates chose Ecuador to host the next UN biodiversity summit, COP18, in 2028, AFP reported.
What is solid
- Nearly 200 countries adopted the key COP17 texts in Yerevan in overtime, and meeting president Hambardzum Matevosyan declared the result 'perfect' (BBC, AFP).
- The UN assessment presented at the talks says the world is on track to achieve only one of the 2022 framework's targets (BBC).
What is only claimed
- How much new money the summit actually secured: the BBC reported more than $1 billion pledged at the meeting, while a WWF account put announcements by the end of the ministerial segment at more than $1.8 billion — the figures cover different moments and are not the same tally.