Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17

Share: X (Twitter) Facebook LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Print A first set of biodiversity plans filed "insufficient" to meet this decade's global targets, including a landmark goal to protect at least 30% of the world's land and marine ecosystems by 2030, a landmark UN report warned on Thursday. The State of Biodiversity Action, put together by a panel of technical experts for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was released in Yerevan, ahead of the COP17 nature talks starting on Monday in the Armenian capital. Over the next two weeks, governments will for the first time take stock of progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed in 2022 – a set of 23 targets also known as the "Paris Agreement for nature" – and will decide on policy guidelines for ramping up ambition before the 2030 deadline. The UN report will be the main basis for these negotiations. Log in here → Lots of our articles are free. This one isn't This story is exclusively available to paid subscribers. A free account gets you a selection of our reporting and our Climate Weekly . But a subscription gets you every story in full, our Bulletin emails from negotiations and conferences, two subscriber-only newsletters, and our monthly Editor’s column. £40/quarter → Or £130/year — best value. A first set of biodiversity plans filed "insufficient" to meet this decade's global targets, including a landmark goal to protect at least 30% of the world's land and marine ecosystems by 2030, a landmark UN report warned on Thursday. The State of Biodiversity Action, put together by a panel of technical experts for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was released in Yerevan, ahead of the COP17 nature talks starting on Monday in the Armenian capital. Over the next two weeks, governments will for the first time take stock of progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed in 2022 – a set of 23 targets also known as the "Paris Agreement for nature" – and will decide on policy guidelines for ramping up ambition before the 2030 deadline. The UN report will be the main basis for these negotiations. At a press conference in Armenia, UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted that, while there has been some progress on the GBF, the "bad news" is that less than half of country plans are on track to meet its targets. If current commitments are met , only 26% of land ecosystems and 12% of marine ecosystems will be protected – falling "real short" of the 30% target agreed in Montreal in 2022, Guterres said. "The war on nature has not yet ended," he added.