World Off Track on 22 of 23 Nature Targets as COP17 Opens

The world is failing almost every nature target it set for itself in 2022. That is the starting point in Yerevan this week, where the UN biodiversity conference, COP17, opened on Sunday, October 18, 2026, and formal negotiations begin on Monday, October 19.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan opened the meeting and called on countries to turn commitments into concrete actions and measurable results, Xinhua reported. Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the review should show where countries are falling short and what they need to do next.

The scorecard nobody wanted

COP17 is the first full review of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the 2022 agreement that aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and protect 30 percent of land and sea by that year. A draft UN report prepared for the review found countries are not on track to meet 22 of the framework's 23 goals, Reuters reported.

The one bright line is land protection. The world is likely to reach about 27.5 percent of land protected by 2030, close to the 30 percent goal. The rest of the list is falling behind, from pesticide use and unsustainable fishing to subsidies that damage nature. Scientists cited in the reporting warn that the losses threaten food production, water security and economic stability.

So far, 144 countries, including Brazil and China, have filed national action plans under the framework. A plan on paper is not the same as money in the field, and that gap runs through every session in Yerevan.

Why it matters

Nature loss is not a distant problem. Farms need pollinators and healthy soil. Cities need wetlands and forests that hold back floods. Fisheries need stocks that can recover. When those systems weaken, food and water get more expensive and less reliable, and the damage lands first on poorer countries that did the least to cause it.

The framework also carries a hard deadline. Four years remain to reach the 2030 targets. A review that only lists failures, without new money and clear next steps, would leave countries with the same plans and a shorter clock.

Money is the fight

Who pays, and how much, will decide this conference. The public finance goal under discussion is 30 billion dollars, and the broader aim is to mobilise at least 200 billion dollars a year by 2030 for nature. Those numbers are far from settled. Rich countries argue that private money and development banks should carry more of the load. Developing countries say public finance was promised and has not arrived at the scale needed.

The talks in Yerevan run alongside two related meetings on biosafety and on access to genetic resources. The conference is scheduled to run from October 19 to October 30, 2026, under the theme Taking Action for Nature. A separate climate conference, COP31, begins on November 9 in Antalya, Turkey, which gives negotiators in Yerevan a reason to settle the nature finance language here rather than carry the fight into November.

What happens next

Negotiators spend the first week on the global review text: which targets get named as off track, and what countries commit to do about it. The finance decision is expected late in the second week. Watch for whether the final text sets a firm public finance figure, a deadline for national plans to be funded, and a way to check progress before 2030 instead of after it.

Key numbers

Targets in the Kunming-Montreal framework: 23. Targets the draft UN report says are off track: 22. Land protection expected by 2030: about 27.5 percent, against a 30 percent goal. Countries with national action plans so far: 144. Public finance goal under discussion: 30 billion dollars. Wider finance aim: at least 200 billion dollars a year by 2030.