Funding deadlock derails global effort to save nature

YEREVAN, Armenia — Scorching wildfires, disastrous floods and the looming mass extinction of species weren’t enough to convince wealthy nations to unlock crucial funds needed to halt biodiversity loss at a global nature summit this week. As countries around the world race against the clock to protect what’s left of the Earth’s collapsing ecosystems, global talks aimed at speeding up nature protection efforts yielded underwhelming results. The United Nations COP17 on biodiversity ended on Saturday with a renewed promise from countries to speed up global efforts to protect nature and restore depleted ecosystems by 2030. But behind that grand gesture, governments are still struggling to unlock the hundreds of billions needed to meet global biodiversity protection targets. The reason? A profound and unresolved disagreement over where that money should come from. “If we’re mutually unhappy that’s probably the closest we can get to on these very delicate compromises,” said a member of the Swiss delegation just before the text was adopted. After two weeks of negotiations over how to speed up efforts to protect ecosystems, nearly 200 countries secured a hard-fought agreement to “accelerate the implementation” of the global biodiversity framework “including by increased ambition in addressing the gaps, challenges and barriers related to implementation,” according to a draft of the text, the final version of which was not immediately available. Armenian Environment Minister Hambardzum Matevosyan, who presided over the summit, said negotiators had “achieved more than we could have expected.” But in the end, governments could not agree on how to increase the number of countries currently contributing to biodiversity finance, instead only stating the obvious: that more funds would be better. The summit exposed a growing chasm between nations over who should be held financially responsible for funding conservation measures worldwide: historically wealthy countries whose economies have caused immense damage to the environment, or newly rich states whose economies have grown exponentially in the last three decades. “This COP was always going to be difficult,” said Steven Guilbeault, former environment minister for Canada, adding that “COP17’s real legacy will be decided far beyond these walls, when words need to translate to action.” Negotiators are leaving Yerevan with many issues left to resolve between now and the next COP in 2028 in Ecuador, including on how to attract more companies that benefit from nature to fund conservation projects via the Cali Fund, a landmark vehicle aimed at mobilizing private finance into nature established in 2024. Governments know they are running out of time. At COP17, scientific experts reiterated that a million species are at risk of extinction, and the U.N. has identified an annual biodiversity financing gap of $700 billion. A cleared forest slope with uprooted tree stumps, disturbed soil and construction machinery in Chablais, France on Oct. 27, 2026. | Guillaume Lambin/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images “We’re not on track to stop and reverse the biodiversity loss by 2030,” said Monique Barbut, France’s environment minister, during a COP17 plenary session on Wednesday. The world needs to “mobilize all international funding sources” to make it happen, she insisted. The talks also ran long due to disagreements over language related to the involvement of Indigenous peoples in a key decision-making body of the Convention. The dispute The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity relies on the consensus that rich countries should pay more to protect nature because of the pressure their societies and economies exert on global ecosystems. Since its ratification in the 1990s, a group of wealthy countries including Canada, Australia, Japan, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway and some EU members have been funding efforts to implement the Convention. Now, thos