Guterres tells COP17 Leaders' Summit in Yerevan that biodiversity finance is less than half the agreed 200 billion dollars

16 October 2026

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to governments, businesses and communities to accelerate action to protect biodiversity. He was speaking in Yerevan, Armenia, at the Leaders' Summit ahead of the opening of the COP17 UN biodiversity conference. He said more than a million species face the risk of extinction. On the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed four years ago, he said nearly 90 per cent of parties have established national biodiversity targets and more than half have developed national road maps, and that since 2022 an additional 1.3 million square kilometres of land and six million square kilometres of ocean have received formal protection. Even if countries fulfil current commitments, however, only 26 per cent of terrestrial ecosystems and 12 per cent of marine ecosystems would be protected by 2030, well short of the Framework's goal of conserving 30 per cent of the world's land and sea. He said biodiversity financing is less than half the 200 billion dollars agreed under the Framework, that for every dollar invested in protecting nature 30 dollars is spent on activities that damage it, and that in 2023 7.3 trillion dollars flowed into nature-negative industries. Meeting global biodiversity, climate and land-restoration goals would require annual investment in nature-based solutions to reach 571 billion dollars by 2030, about 0.5 per cent of global gross domestic product. He welcomed the Yerevan Declaration and pointed to the Cali Fund as a mechanism for private sector contributions.