Yerevan Nature Deal Lands With One Target of 24 on Course
After nearly two weeks of negotiation in Armenia’s capital, governments agreed a new accord on nature and acknowledged they are falling behind. The 2022 framework they are meant to be delivering set 24 targets, including protecting 30% of the world’s land and seas by 2030. The UN says one is on track.
One target in twenty-four is the number to hold on to, and the agreement reached this week is best understood as an admission rather than an advance. The meeting’s president pronounced it “perfect”; a conservation body’s assessment was drier and more useful — “while not particularly exciting or detailed, it’s good news that countries could reach agreement”. Money is the unresolved question. According to the UN, pledges are nowhere near the rate required, and the reason recurs across this week’s news: governments are redirecting international aid towards defence budgets and towards absorbing energy shocks. The fund meant to make companies pay for commercialising genetic material from biodiverse countries could in theory raise $3.6bn a year; it had attracted $10,000 in pledges when the meeting opened. Of the $1bn pledged in Yerevan, about half came from philanthropy rather than governments. One caution: this rests on a single approved outlet, the deal having landed at half past one this morning. Watch whether finance pledges materialise before the targets formally expire, because on current evidence twenty-three of them will not be met.