COP17 in Yerevan closes with a “Yerevan Pathway” for nature and nearly $2 billion in new biodiversity funding

The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) closed in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Saturday with an agreement known as the Yerevan Pathway, a roadmap meant to speed up action to halt the loss of nature, according to UN News. Countries are at the halfway point to 2030, and a global review found the world off track to meet its biodiversity targets.

The pathway sets priorities for the four years left to deliver the 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It calls on countries to tackle subsidies that harm nature, to increase financial, scientific and technical support for developing countries, to align national budgets and economic decisions with the framework, and to strengthen monitoring and reporting.

A mixed message on money

“We cannot protect nature while continuing to finance its destruction,” said Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. COP17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan said that over two weeks of talks the parties had “demonstrated that differences can be bridged.”

What was decided

Parties adopted nearly 50 decisions, covering protected areas and forests, wildlife management, invasive alien species, marine and coastal biodiversity and synthetic biology. After intensive negotiations they also agreed the Sevan Guidelines, the rules of operation for a new permanent body that strengthens the role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in shaping global biodiversity policy.

Nearly $2 billion in new biodiversity funding was announced. It includes $560 million under the latest replenishment of the Global Environment Facility and $500 million through the Species Recovery Alliance. A further $330 million goes to the Value Nature Fund, which aims to mobilise private capital for nature. The Asian Development Bank launched a new biodiversity bond and an investment incubator, and new indicators were introduced to improve monitoring and accountability.

What comes next

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, said that “environmental multilateralism prevail[ed] once again” in Yerevan, with countries finding “the spirit of compromise.” The next conference, COP18, will be held in Ecuador, with two years left to reach the targets. Schomaker put the test plainly: it is not what governments agreed in Yerevan, but what they change when they return home.