UN Nature Talks Seek a Reset as 2030 Biodiversity Goals Fall Behind

The world agreed in 2022 to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. Four years on, the United Nations says the effort is behind schedule, and governments are heading into a pivotal conference in Yerevan, Armenia, hoping to reset it. COP17 of the Convention on Biological Diversity runs from 19 to 30 October 2026 and will carry out the first global review of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The framework sets 23 targets for 2030, from protecting land and sea to restoring damaged ecosystems, cutting harmful subsidies and mobilising money for nature. According to the Convention's Secretariat, the first report on progress, called the State of Biodiversity Action, was considered at two preparatory meetings held in Nairobi in July and August: the scientific advisory body, SBSTTA-28, and the implementation body, SBI-7. It shows both effort and a gap. A record 130 Parties, over 70 percent, submitted national reports, and 172 Parties, almost 90 percent, submitted national targets.

Yet participation is not the same as delivery. The report finds that conservation targets show promising efforts, while the targets that make action possible are lagging. These include mobilising resources, repurposing harmful subsidies and ensuring inclusive governance. Astrid Schomaker, the Convention's Executive Secretary, said that fewer than half of the aligned national targets assessed by Parties are currently on track. Other coverage of the draft report reported that only one of the 23 targets, on limiting climate impacts on biodiversity, was judged on track, and even then not quickly enough.

Money is the sharpest fault line. The framework calls for at least 200 billion US dollars a year to be mobilised for biodiversity by 2030, and negotiators at Yerevan will be working to close an annual funding shortfall that the Earth Negotiations Bulletin puts at 700 billion dollars when harmful incentives are included. Delegates are also expected to settle a permanent arrangement for the financial mechanism and to review the Cali Fund, which is meant to channel contributions from companies that use genetic sequence data from nature. The Secretariat noted that discussions on the Cali Fund were intense.

There was progress in Nairobi too. Parties reached broad consensus on recommendations for sustainable wildlife management, marine and coastal conservation and synthetic biology, and they advanced the first update since 2004 of the programme of work on protected areas. Those recommendations now feed into COP17.

For readers of sustainability reporting, the lesson is that nature is increasingly a question of economics and governance, not only conservation. The State of Biodiversity Action report points to the largest gaps in biodiversity finance, harmful subsidies, business impacts and dependencies on nature, and sustainable consumption. These are areas where companies, banks and regulators have a direct role, and where reporting standards on nature-related risks are becoming part of mainstream disclosure.

Schomaker has described the task awaiting negotiators in Yerevan as one that will take all the stamina and determination Parties can summon. Whether the conference produces a genuine reset will depend on commitments that can be tracked: new money, subsidy reform with dates attached, and national plans that match the scale of the targets. With the 2030 deadline now closer than the 2022 agreement, the room for gradual progress is shrinking.

Why it matters

The nature goals were never going to be met by good intentions alone. Halfway to 2030, the gap is in money, subsidies and governance, the unglamorous machinery that decides whether protection is real. COP17 matters because it is the first time governments must look at their own results in public and say what changes next.