Nearly 200 countries adopted agreements at the UN biodiversity summit in Yerevan on Friday, 30 October, after negotiations ran into overtime, AFP reported.
The decisions followed two weeks of talks in Armenia aimed at accelerating efforts to halt the loss of nature by 2030. Conference president Hambardzum Matevosyan brought down the gavel on the documents, according to the news agency.
The final texts were not immediately available when AFP reported the agreement. Details circulated during negotiations cannot yet be treated as the adopted outcome.
First global review
The Convention on Biological Diversity described the Yerevan conference as a first global review of progress, with discussion focused on implementing the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
The framework contains 23 targets intended to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Adoption of conference decisions does not, by itself, establish that those targets have been achieved.
A global assessment launched ahead of the summit highlighted the implementation gap. The Convention on Biological Diversity said nearly 90% of countries had set national biodiversity targets, but fewer than half of the targets assessed were on track.
That distinction matters: setting a national target is not the same as making progress towards delivering it. The final adopted texts will be needed to establish what governments agreed on finance and other disputed issues.
