COP17 in Armenia Draws More Than $1.8bn in New Biodiversity Funding

By the close of the high-level segment of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, more than USD 1.8 billion in new biodiversity funding had been announced, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said on 29 October.

The money was announced through government pledges, multilateral funding commitments and public-private financing initiatives, including new pledges made by parties in their high-level statements, according to the CBD's press release on the close of the high-level segment. The segment, convened by the Government of Armenia on 27 and 28 October, drew around 1,500 participants, including nearly 140 ministers and deputy ministers and 40 heads of international organisations.

Armenia holds the presidency of the conference, which comprises the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) and meetings of the parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing. It runs from 19 to 30 October, and negotiations were continuing toward the conference's conclusion on 30 October.

Four Yerevan initiatives

The high-level segment launched the Yerevan Call on Incentives Positive to Biodiversity, the Yerevan Platform on Mountains and Related Freshwater Ecosystems, the Yerevan Technology Platform for Biodiversity Monitoring and the Yerevan OECM Global Hub, the CBD said. OECMs are other effective area-based conservation measures. Armenia has announced four flagship initiatives for its presidency, on OECMs, mountain and freshwater ecosystems, biodiversity monitoring and harmful incentives, the CBD said.

The segment, listed on the CBD's page for the high-level segment, aimed, according to the CBD, to mobilise political leadership for implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022 at COP15, which contains four long-term goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030.

"As we close this High-Level Segment, I thank you for your engagement, your proposals and your commitment to taking action for nature," COP17 President Hambardzum Matevosyan said, according to the CBD release. "We must now bring the same energy and political leadership into the negotiating rooms to turn our commitment here in Yerevan into lasting action for nature."

Finance at the centre

Biodiversity finance was a key theme, the CBD said, with emphasis on fulfilling Target 19 commitments, reforming harmful subsidies, scaling up positive incentives for biodiversity and strengthening fair and equitable benefit-sharing, including through the Cali Fund.

Matevosyan, who is also Armenia's Environment Minister, made the same link at a press conference held during COP17. "Biodiversity conservation cannot remain the sole responsibility of environment ministries. It must become an integral part of the decisions shaping our economies, national budgets and investments," he said, as Armenpress reported on 26 October. He also welcomed the financial commitments made by investors.

Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the CBD, said in the 29 October release that the time to close the gap between where the world is and where it wants to go is now, and that parties must find the stamina to conclude discussions on all the critical topics before them.

What it means for business

For companies in the South Caucasus, the Yerevan agenda is moving from statements to money and rules. The push to reform harmful subsidies and scale up positive incentives could point to changes in how governments support agriculture, mining, energy and water use, the sectors that depend most on land and freshwater in a mountainous region.

The technology platform for biodiversity monitoring and the OECM hub could shape how projects show their effect on conserved areas. That matters for lenders and investors that ask borrowers for environmental data, and for the investors Matevosyan welcomed as a source of finance.

For Armenia, the presidency adds a policy track to an economy already adjusting to new rules. Metals exporters face a separate rule change, as CBJ reported on the draft licensing of copper, steel and aluminium exports, and the country's largest companies remain the main contributors to the budget, as shown in CBJ's report on Armenia's 1,000 largest taxpayers. The decisions adopted at the close in Yerevan will show how the USD 1.8 billion in commitments is put to use.