At the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention (COP17), held in Yerevan, Armenia, the meeting ended on Friday night with a commitment by countries to “accelerate” efforts to meet the targets set for 2030, acknowledging delays.
After two weeks of intense negotiations in Yerevan, the roughly 200 member countries of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), of which Portugal is a member, reached agreement on key texts for the protection of nature, starting with a decision on a “global analysis” of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, a historic pact adopted in 2022 and often compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate.
The Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework establishes 23 targets to be met by 2030, including protecting 30% of land and oceans, tackling pollution, and restoring degraded ecosystems.
However, the implementation of virtually all these targets is lagging.
Therefore, the text approved at COP17 aims to put countries back on the right track to achieving these objectives.
“Although the text is not particularly exciting or detailed, the simple fact that the countries managed to reach an agreement is good news,” evaluated Catherine Weller of the non-governmental organization Fauna & Flora.
In a working document, countries were urged to accelerate their efforts, highlighting the need for a strengthening of measures to address the root causes of biodiversity loss, although the issue surfaced under different formulations.
During the negotiations, the issue of subsidies and other incentives for activities harmful to nature, such as oil exploration, was intensely debated.
“Even though the final decision addresses the topic in a rather timid way, there was a significant political push regarding harmful financial incentives, including subsidies,” said An Lambrechts of Greenpeace International, in a statement to AFP.
At the opening of this final session of COP17, Armenia’s Environment Minister, Hambardzum Matevosyan, announced the adoption of two important documents that had been the subject of a commitment by the gathered countries, appearing visibly relieved by the outcome.
The second adopted text deals with the financial issue, namely who should bear the costs to reach the financial targets set for 2030, a point considered extremely sensitive at a time when public finances are strained somewhat worldwide.
During COP, the European Union sought to persuade major emerging economies, especially China, to join the official donor list, which had not been updated since 2006.
A working document proposed that states could voluntarily express the desire to be included on that list.
For France’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Monique Barbut, the balance of COP17, as a whole, “is not up to the challenges.”
“The advances we were not able to achieve here represent missed opportunities to accelerate our response to biodiversity loss,” the French minister said in a statement to AFP.
Efforts to revive the Cali Fund — a United Nations mechanism designed to charge companies that exploit genetic data from plants and other organisms — proved difficult.
“By delaying essential decisions (about its functioning) to 2028, the parties essentially guaranteed that the fund will remain empty until then,” lamented Pakhi Das of the NGO Plant-for-the-Planet.
The summit was also marked by strong tensions regarding the scientific bases guiding the global policy for nature protection, with several countries accused of trying to weaken them.
In Yerevan, the representatives of the states also decided that Ecuador will host the next biodiversity COP, in 2028.
