For the next two weeks, the Armenian capital is where the world negotiates the future of life on Earth. After an official opening ceremony on Sunday, the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity gets down to business this Monday, 19 October, with talks running until 30 October. Declaring the conference open, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he hoped Yerevan would mark a renewal of political resolve and that international cooperation would turn into measurable results.
Yerevan had to fight for the role. The choice was made in 2024 at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, where Armenia won by 65 votes to 58 against the rival bid. Close to 200 countries are now taking part.
This edition stands apart from the others. It is the first global review of progress under the Kunming-Montreal framework adopted in 2022. A report titled State of Biodiversity Action measures how far countries have come on the 23 targets set for 2030. The findings are likely to sting: at the current pace, 22 of the 23 targets will be missed, according to La Croix.
So negotiators are not there to write a new treaty or set fresh goals. They are working on a package of measures known as the “Yerevan path”, meant to turn the review into concrete decisions. The European Commission captures the mood by calling for this to be the COP of proof rather than promises. Campaigners want action too. BirdLife International is urging governments to leave Yerevan with stronger measures, not another account of missed chances.
Money remains the sticking point. Delegations must look at the national plans each country has submitted and at the funding actually raised to carry them out, an area where several NGOs are already critical. Honouring financial pledges made to countries of the Global South is among the priorities backed by France and Europe.
Africa has a lot riding on these talks. The African Development Bank describes a paradox: a continent with enormous biodiversity that is watching it vanish at an alarming rate. In Yerevan, the bank plans to work with partners on practical ways to protect Africa’s natural capital and put it to work for sustainable development. It points to its own commitments, including $6.5 billion for the Great Green Wall and programmes in the Congo Basin, the Lake Chad Basin, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. The bank says African countries need stronger policy frameworks, more resources, a shift away from subsidies that harm nature and new financing tools.
African experience will also shape the scientific debate. France’s agricultural research centre CIRAD, for example, is hosting an event on how farming, forestry, conservation and livelihoods can share the same land, drawing partly on work carried out in Africa.
The role of Indigenous Peoples and local communities will be closely watched as well. The Convention’s secretariat paid for 22 of their representatives from around the world to travel to Yerevan and help steer the talks. What is at stake for them is how much say they will have over the ecosystems they live on.
Ten days of talks, then, to keep the Kunming-Montreal framework off the long list of broken pledges. With four years left before 2030, there is little room left for error.