Fewer than half of national targets to protect biodiversity are on track, a new global assessment published ahead of the first progress review under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework has found. The findings put the distance between governments’ promises and their current progress in focus as countries prepare to meet in Armenia.
The assessment examines collective action under the framework, adopted in 2022. Its 23 targets cover measures intended to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. They include conserving 30 per cent of the world’s land and seas and restoring 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems. The agreement also calls for action on pollution, threatened species and the causes of nature loss.
The new report’s central finding is that the world is not moving fast enough to meet those commitments. Fewer than half of national-level targets assessed are on course. The assessment is a progress review, not a final verdict on the 2030 goals: it describes current implementation and the direction of travel, leaving time for governments to change course.
One measure illustrates the scale of the challenge. Current commitments would protect 26 per cent of land and 12 per cent of the sea by 2030, short of the 30 per cent goal for each. These projections concern the protection commitments currently in place, rather than a claim that no additional areas will be protected before the deadline.
Finance is another test. Governments agreed to mobilise 200 billion US dollars a year for biodiversity by 2030 and to increase funding for developing countries. The latest available figures put annual biodiversity-related finance at between 75 billion and 92 billion dollars from 2023 to 2025. That remains below the overall annual ambition. The separate pledge to provide 20 billion dollars a year to developing countries by 2025 was close to its target, with 19 billion dollars reported for 2024. Whether that progress continues is uncertain amid falling foreign aid.
The funding gap matters because conservation requires more than drawing boundaries on a map. Protected areas need science to identify suitable places, as well as management, governance and the infrastructure to maintain them. Countries with significant biodiversity may also face competing demands on public budgets, including health, education and essential services.
There are signs of movement as well as shortfalls. More than 90 per cent of signatories have set national biodiversity targets, and 70 per cent are reporting on them. The area of dry land and inland water under conservation has risen since 2020 to 18 per cent, although that rate of progress is not considered fast enough to reach 30 per cent by 2030. Those figures show that national planning and reporting are taking place, but they do not demonstrate that the global commitments are being achieved.
Governments will begin their first global review of collective progress at the 17th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity, scheduled for 19 to 30 October in Yerevan. Delegations are expected to consider a proposed “Yerevan Pathway” to accelerate implementation. Discussions are also set to cover how to mobilise public and private funding and how to integrate biodiversity into economic policies, including agriculture, trade and finance.
The review gives countries a shared account of where implementation stands before the 2030 deadline. The assessment points to a clear test for the meeting: whether governments can turn existing commitments into faster action, provide resources at the promised scale and make conservation part of decisions across the economy. No agreement or outcome from the conference has yet been reached.
