Friday saw the conclusion of Biodiversity COP17, the UN’s biannual conference for signatories to the UN Convention on biological diversity.
The conference, which was held in Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan, followed the UN’s current move away from significant policy negotiation and towards a focus on implementation and review.
Alongside the negotiation space, otherwise called the ‘Blue Zone’, COP17 featured a free-to-access ‘Green Zone’, which ran public events throughout the two weeks and brought together international voices from Indigenous leaders, civil society organisations, businesses, and youth movements for a series of panel discussions, talks, and workshops on biodiversity.
This year has been an unusual year for UN climate conferences. Three were scheduled, starting with Combat Desertification COP17 in Ulaanbaataar, Mongolia, in mid August. Next week will see the start of Climate COP31 in Antalya, Türki̇ye, less than two weeks after the end of Biodiversity COP17.
These conferences fall at a time when the effects of climate change are being felt more acutely than ever. Extreme weather events as a result of climate change are occurring more frequently across the globe, with floods, droughts, and heatwaves becoming increasingly common. This summer saw unprecedented heatwaves across Europe, for one, linked to climate change.
New data suggests that this resulted in 50,000 excess deaths, 32,000 of which were linked to climate breakdown.
Read more: Record heat deaths expose Europe climate adaptation gap
Falling short of 2030 targets
The tone of the conference was set with the release of the State of Biodiversity Action report shortly before the conference. The report aimed to evaluate the progress which countries were making towards meeting 23 biodiversity targets adopted in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework during COP15 in 2022.
According to its findings, the world is not on track to meet this 2030 deadline.
Armenia as a host received its share of criticism, too. Less than 10 days before the start of the conference, the Armenian government opened the controversial Amulsar gold mine, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claiming that all environmental concerns about the project had been addressed.
However, climate activists have criticised the Armenian government’s support for the project, as the mine would affect an ecologically sensitive region, which contradicts Armenia’s biodiversity commitments. Concerns from local communities and environmental experts about threats to wildlife and water contamination are ongoing.
There were also criticisms levelled at other governments taking part in the conference. Indigenous leaders from Peru called for more direct investment into the communities who are on the front lines of biodiversity protection, as well as more respect for Indigenous knowledge on the environment.
Indigenous leaders from California also raised the need for durable agreements between Indigenous communities and the state government.
Civil society organisations from Georgia also criticised a lack of proper consultation from the government on environmental issues and the harsh crackdowns which organisations have faced since the Georgian Dream party came to power in 2024.
Read more: Georgia passes amendments increasing control over civil society and critics, prompting EU criticism
Signs of progress and a fading spotlight
Despite criticisms and failure to meet global targets, Biodiversity COP17 has still provided some hope for the future. There was a strong focus on elevating the voices of young people, particularly within the Green Zone, emphasising that they are not passively waiting to take up leadership in the future. Rather, many young people are already taking action within their communities, as the climate crisis affects both their future and their present.
Parties adopted a new agreement, the Yerevan Pathway, which identifies areas where progress should be prioritised and accelerated ahead of 2030.
Several risks which were limiting governments’ abilities to achieve the targets set out in the Kunming-Montreal framework were also raised, including financing gaps and limited access to knowledge. A step towards reducing this risk comes from new Sevan Guidelines, which established a new, permanent subsidiary body aimed at elevating and strengthening the role of Indigenous and local communities in global biodiversity policy, as outlined in the Biodiversity Convention.
Although it has not been identified as a crunch issue for Climate COP31, it is expected that conversations about increased Indigenous representation in global climate policy will continue next week.
The Sevan National Park, after which the guidelines are named, is one area which experts are concerned will be affected by the Amulsar gold mine.
Ahead of next week’s Climate COP31, a new challenge may be creeping up on states trying to meet global climate targets: climate fatigue.
Global public engagement with Biodiversity COP17 appeared lackluster. “The world’s attention [was] elsewhere,” during the conference, The Guardian reported.
In a press briefing for Climate COP31, some experts raised that they were expecting less attention on this year’s iteration than previously, as the conference moves away from policy creation and into implementation and evaluation. Global climate fatigue cannot be ruled out as another possible reason for decreased engagement.
As government representatives and experts head towards Antalya for the final UN climate conference of 2026, it remains to be seen if public engagement will continue to stall, and how this will affect global ambitions to tackle climate change in the future.
Featured image: Panelists on the ‘From Observation to Management: The Role of Long-Term Monitoring in the Global Biodiversity Framework’ panel on the final day of COP17.
Source: COP17 Armenia Green Zone
