Nearly 200 Countries Agree Nature Action Plan in Yerevan, but Funding Lags
Delegates from nearly 200 countries agreed the key parts of a new nature action plan early on Saturday, 31 October, hours after the talks were due to finish, according to the BBC. The negotiations were held in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 to 30 October as the UN 2026 Biodiversity Conference, a set of linked meetings that included COP17, CP-MOP12 and NP-MOP6.
The talks build on a 2022 agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, in which countries committed to "halt and reverse" the decline of nature. The framework sets 24 targets, among them protecting 30% of the world's land and seas by the end of the decade.
Progress so far has been uneven. On 18 October, the UN Secretary-General launched the first global assessment of progress under the agreement, and the UN has reported that the world is on track to achieve just one of the 24 targets. Under the Yerevan deal, countries acknowledged they were falling behind. Countries have put 623 million acres (252 million hectares) of degraded land into protection, an area bigger than Greenland.
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.
Financing was one of the central issues. In 2022, countries agreed to put $30 billion towards nature recovery efforts by the end of the decade and to mobilise a further $170 billion from private sources. A UN environment report, the State of Finance for Nature, says the world needs to close a $4.1 trillion financing gap for nature by 2050.
At Yerevan, more than $1 billion was pledged, with half coming from philanthropists including Leonardo DiCaprio's Re:wild organisation. The Cali Fund, set up for private companies that profit from using genetic material found in the environment to make donations, had $10,000 pledged when the meeting began. Estimates suggest it could raise up to $3.6 billion a year.
Reuters reported that countries reached a deal to speed up biodiversity action, but that funding remained short. Financing and the removal of harmful subsidies were key focus issues at the conference, and a Finance and Biodiversity Day on 26 October brought together finance leaders, experts and practitioners.
