Back on Track

GLOBAL NATURE TALKS REACH DEAL

Following two weeks of heated debate, deep divisions, stalling tactics, and a major funding crisis, the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) concluded in Yerevan, Armenia in the early hours of this morning (31st October 2026) with nearly 200 nations adopting a hard-fought action plan to revive lagging global nature goals. Delegates cheered as crucial texts were finally approved in overtime, following two weeks of tense negotiations at the UN summit.

The world adopted a historic pact in 2022 setting ambitious targets to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. But ahead of the summit, the UN warned that countries would fail to meet their goals unless they urgently changed course. A draft COP17 text had called on countries to "accelerate" efforts to keep the pact alive to tackle the main drivers of nature loss.

A UN report published on 29th October 2026 at the conference, found that 252 million hectares across 149 countries are being restored, creating more than one million green jobs - the largest documented global restoration effort to date but they warned that to reach 2030 commitments, action must rapidly increase with a particular focus on freshwater, marine and coastal ecosystems. The report also said that annual restoration finance must more than quadruple and this investment could generate up to an estimated 32 million new jobs worldwide by 2030.

"Today, we are witnessing the makings of one of the largest movements for nature in recorded history," said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. "Yet, at the halfway point of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, we are still not restoring nature at the scale or speed required. By 2030, we must turn inspiring initiatives into systemwide action - shifting to restoration economies that protect what remains and restore what has been degraded."

At COP 17 countries agreed to adopt 'The Yerevan Pathway', an action plan to accelerate commitments toward this decade's 2030 targets, most notably the "30x30" goal to protect 30% of the planet's land and oceans, and to restore a third of degraded ecosystems. Yet, ultimately, while the conference succeeded in finalizing a consensus framework many widely considered the overall progress to be far short of what is required to stem the global ecological crisis and there were issues over finance.

Now all eyes are on the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31), in Antalaya, Turkey, running from 9th -20th November, which much like COP 17, is framed as a 'COP of implementation', meaning the negotiations will be largely focused on technical details around how countries plan to live up to commitments made at past UN climate conferences. For more information click HERE. https://unfccc.int/