COP16 UN Biodiversity Summit 

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Latest news on COP17, including the COP17 UN biodiversity summit and United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, with coverage of COP16, COP15, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), 30 by 30 (30x30), the Cali Fund, digital sequence information, biodiversity finance, national biodiversity strategies (NBSAPs) and talks in Armenia, Cali, Colombia and Valle del Cauca.

COP17 is the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a UN treaty opened for signature at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit that now has 196 parties. The conference meets roughly every two years, and its decisions shape how countries protect biological diversity on land and at sea. Hosted by Armenia in Yerevan in October 2026, COP17 is the first global review of the Kunming-Montreal framework.

That framework was agreed at COP15 in Montreal in December 2022 under China's presidency, after a first phase held virtually in Kunming in October 2021, which gives it its name. It sets four goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030, replacing the Aichi targets, none of which was fully met. Its headline pledge, 30 by 30, is to protect 30% of land, inland waters and seas by 2030, backed by a goal of at least $200 billion a year for nature from all sources, including $30 billion a year in international public finance.

The main controversies are money and delivery. Reviews have found progress uneven and behind the pace needed for 2030, while developing countries press wealthier ones to meet finance pledges. Talks on the Cali Fund have centred on how much companies should pay in, who else should contribute and how money should be disbursed, and critics note the framework has no binding compliance mechanism. Other agenda items include NBSAPs, national reports, synthetic biology and the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols.

COP16 was held in Cali, Colombia, in the Valle del Cauca region, from 21 October to 1 November 2024. It created the Cali Fund, which asks companies that profit from digital sequence information on genetic resources to share benefits, with half going to Indigenous peoples and local communities. The summit was suspended after a loss of quorum, and a resumed session in Rome, ending on 28 February 2025, settled the outstanding resource mobilisation items.

Behind the negotiations are people whose lives depend on nature. COP16 set up a permanent body to strengthen the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities and their traditional knowledge, while scientists, youth delegates, businesses and campaigners all press for greater ambition. CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker has stressed that commitments must be honoured, and host countries' own environmental records often come under scrutiny too.

Following the UN biodiversity talks matters because the targets set at each conference shape national laws, conservation budgets and corporate disclosure for years. Our NewsNow feed on COP17, COP16 and COP15 brings together the latest headlines from reliable sources on the Kunming-Montreal framework, 30 by 30, the Cali Fund and nature finance, so you can follow every conference decision as it happens.