COP17 biodiversity summit opens in Yerevan as EU progress review shows mixed results

COP17, the UN Biodiversity Conference, opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October and runs until 30 October. The meeting marks the first global review of progress since the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted in 2022.

The framework contains 23 targets for 2030 and four longer-term goals for 2050. Its best-known ambition is to conserve 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030.

“Governments gathering in Yerevan will have to confront whether they are doing enough to win the peace and put the world's biodiversity goals back on track.”

For the European Union, only two of its 45 targets have been achieved and 16 are on track. Progress remains too slow on another 25 targets, while two cannot yet be assessed.

Protected areas have expanded in the EU, organic farming has increased and more fish stocks are managed sustainably. However, farmland birds and grassland butterflies continue to decline.

Nearly 90 per cent of the 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have set national biodiversity targets. Fewer than half of those assessed targets are on track.

The conference will consider how to accelerate action over the next four years, with finance, capacity, cooperation and data identified as major gaps.