‘Bunch of baloney’: calls grow for Cop summit reforms as countries on track to fail nature targets

A baby orangutan is rescued after a wildfire in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Governments are likely on track to continue their record of never having met a target in the 34-year history of the Cop convention. Photograph: Jamartin Sihite/AFP/ View image in fullscreen A baby orangutan is rescued after a wildfire in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Governments are likely on track to continue their record of never having met a target in the 34-year history of the Cop convention. Photograph: Jamartin Sihite/AFP/ ‘Bunch of baloney’: calls grow for Cop summit reforms as countries on track to fail nature targets Cop17, focused on protecting nature and restoring ecosystems, concludes on Saturday with critics saying system allows ‘one idiot’ to stall progress Calls are growing for major reforms to UN biodiversity summits as countries fail to deliver on their promises to halt the destruction of the natural world, with governments likely on track to continue their record of never having met a target in the 34-year history of the convention. Two weeks of negotiations at biodiversity Cop17 in Yerevan, Armenia, concluded on Saturday morning with countries vowing to redouble their efforts to meet this decade’s targets, which include commitments to protect 30% of the planet for nature, restore nearly a third of Earth’s degraded ecosystems and reform $500bn (£410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies. Agreed just four years ago , they aim to transform humanity’s relationship with nature. Despite progress in some areas, governments are way off track on meeting almost all of the targets. The UK is set to meet just three of the 23. After talks that ran overnight from Friday into Saturday morning, countries signed off several measures, including a commitment to ramp up action on meeting existing targets and reaffirming a goal to increase biodiversity finance to $30bn a year . During the conference, environment ministers, activists and officials appealed for significant changes to the way the summits function to ensure governments follow through with meaningful action on the drivers of biodiversity loss. Panama’s environment minister, Juan Carlos Navarro, a veteran conservationist, said the Cop process had been “designed to fail”, arguing that decisions should be taken by a majority as the consensus-based process allows “one idiot” to prevent agreement. “A lot of what’s going on out here at the Cop is just a bunch of baloney and beautiful speeches and BS,” he told AFP earlier this week. “We cannot have – we cannot expect – a consensus between every nation on Earth on every topic.