COP17: Nations commit to get nature goals back on track

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YEREVAN, Armenia - Nearly 200 nations struck hard-fought agreements Friday at a UN biodiversity summit, but the outcome was accompanied by disappointment over missed opportunities to address humanity's destructive toll on nature.

Delegates cheered as crucial texts were approved in overtime but the celebrations were tempered by acrimonious debates and regret over limited progress on some of the most contentious issues.

The COP17 summit in Armenia sought to revive a landmark commitment to halt and reverse the destruction of nature by 2030 after global efforts to meet that goal fell short.

Over two bruising weeks in Yerevan, nations were urged to correct course to keep the pact alive and protect the plants, animals and ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.

The United Nations had warned that progress was insufficient to meet the goals of the 2030 target including protecting 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans, tackling pollution and invasive species, and boosting money for conservation.

"And that's it. Perfect," said COP17 president Hambardzum Matevosyan in Armenia as he brought down the gavel on two major texts, the final versions of which were still not available early Saturday.

But the outcome was "not commensurate" with the crisis engulfing the natural world, said French Ecological Transition Minister Monique Barbut early Saturday as the summit drew to a close.

"The progress we failed to achieve here is a series of missed opportunities to speed up our response to the loss of biodiversity," Barbut said in a lengthy statement sent to AFP, stressing that "nature will not wait for the pace of our negotiations."

'Step forward'

The final plenary stretched through Friday night and well into the next morning, with negotiations turning sour as the hours dragged on.

Even as some delegates left to catch flights, others stayed behind to argue technical points.

Veteran COP observer Juliette Landry from the IDDRI think tank told AFP "there was a lot of push and pull in every direction" throughout the summit and "in that context, it's hard to get things accepted".

In a draft agreement of one closely watched text, nations were urged to "accelerate" their efforts and warned that "increased action" was needed to tackle the forces driving biodiversity loss.

This "represents a positive outcome... and though there are weaknesses, particularly on harmful subsidies, it does represent a step forward," Guido Broekhoven from WWF International told AFP.

Tackling subsidies and other incentives that encourage activities harmful to nature — such as fossil fuels, intensive agriculture and overfishing — was one of the most politically fraught agenda items at the summit.

"Even though the agreed decision text expresses it in weak terms, COP17 saw important political momentum to address harmful financial incentives, including subsidies," An Lambrechts from Greenpeace International told AFP.

A rare fight over science cast a pall over the summit, with a number of countries accused of undermining efforts to approve key reports in scenes that shocked even seasoned negotiators.

"We regret the increasing instances in which scientific evidence and its uptake has been challenged or constrained" by politics, said Swiss negotiator Gabriela Blatter in a statement on behalf of dozens of countries.

"Our delegations fully respect every state's right to safeguard national interest but science is not negotiable".

Finance feud

A separate row revolved around finding new cash sources to fund conservation efforts — another hot-button issue with public budgets under strain amid an energy crisis and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The European Union led a charge for wealthy emerging economies such as China to contribute to global conservation efforts, a contentious issue at COP17.

In a sign of possible compromise, another draft text that circulated Friday invited countries outside the developed-country donors to voluntarily join the group.

Outstanding questions over the design of the Cali Fund — a UN mechanism that hoped to attract billions of dollars in corporate contributions but is close to empty — were left unresolved.

"By punting essential decisions to two years from now, parties have all but ensured the fund remains empty until then," said Pakhi Das from the nonprofit organization Plant-for-the-Planet.

The COP17 summit decided early Saturday that Ecuador would host the next biodiversity talks in 2028 after the South American nation defeated rival candidate Panama in a secret vote. —Agence France-Presse