In brief
At the COP17 meeting in Yerevan, negotiators agreed on the Yerevan Pathway, a plan to push global biodiversity action forward. The pathway focuses on accelerating implementation, expanding national targets and enhancing financing, while new biodiversity funding of nearly US$2 billion was announced. However, lingering hurdles—funding gaps, national policy reforms and continued negotiations—continue to threaten the pathway’s success.
At the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Yerevan on Saturday, negotiators secured the Yerevan Pathway, a plan demanding faster implementation of the Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The Yerevan Pathway was presented by the COP17 Secretariat to accelerate global biodiversity action, according to Xinhua. Rather than setting new targets, it calls on countries to boost efforts toward goals already agreed upon.
Key priorities outlined by the pathway include speeding up implementation, broadening national targets, strengthening financial and institutional support, engaging governments and civil society, and improving monitoring and knowledge‑sharing.
Alongside the pathway, negotiators adopted decisions covering protected areas and forest biodiversity, sustainable wildlife management, invasive alien species, marine and coastal biodiversity, synthetic biology and other areas.
The Convention’s Secretariat announced that almost US$2 billion of new biodiversity funding would be made available. The announced allocations consist of US$560 million from the ninth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility and its Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, US$500 million through the Species Recovery Alliance, and more than US$330 million through the Value Nature Fund.
Despite these financial pledges, the Yerevan Pathway highlights remaining hurdles. Yang cited the growing gap between countries’ commitments to protect nature and the concrete action needed to meet those commitments, a gap that will widen from the Kunming‑Montreal Framework’s 2030 deadline. The pathway’s success will hinge on closing financing gaps, reforming national policies and sustaining international cooperation, said the Xinhua report.
Eyewitness accounts from the COP sidelines noted that negotiators expressed hope the pathway would tighten the collective resolve to meet the 2030 targets, but cautioned that without rapid acceleration, the 2050 long‑term goals would remain at risk.
