San Francisco Frontiers - Nations struggle for deal as UN nature talks go down to the wire

Major divisions remained after nearly two weeks of tense negotiations at the COP17 talks with governments under pressure to reach a compromise for the planet as time runs out.

Ahead of the summit in Armenia, the UN warned the world would fail to meet its 2030 target to halt and reverse nature's destruction unless countries urgently correct course.

"They are working really hard. At the same time we're seeing that a number key issues are still unresolved," Guido Broekhoven, a close observer of the negotiations from WWF International, told AFP.

This includes a much-anticipated decision over a set of concrete recommendations for turning struggling pledges into action and notching progress against the 2030 deadline.

Initial optimism that the "global review" could be adopted before Friday faded as nations fought over the terms of this signature agreement.

A core dispute is the language around subsidy reform, with governments having made little progress against their pledge to reduce public spending on activities that harm nature such as fossil fuels.

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

To restore degraded ecosystems, save endangered species and conserve forests, wetlands and other vital natural habitats, the world needs an estimated $700 billion more every year than it currently spends.

The European Union has been leading a charge for wealthy emerging economies like China to join in paying for global conservation efforts but these talks have drifted into stalemate.

"That's a really difficult one to untangle," said Broekhoven, who predicted those particular discussions would not reach consensus at this summit.

- Slow progress -

Efforts to refine the lacklustre Cali Fund -- a UN mechanism for sharing profits from corporations that use genetic data from plants and other organisms -- have also proved difficult.

The fund set out to raise $1 billion a year for conservation in developing countries when it launched in early 2025. So far, it has attracted around $10,000.

Nations have also feuded over key scientific reports, with a small handful of countries accused of stonewalling efforts to accept the benchmark findings of a UN-backed biodiversity body.

Nearly 200 nations adopted a historic pact in 2022 to halt biodiversity loss and set ambitious targets for reaching this goal by 2030.

But most of the objectives have fallen short, including targets to protect 30 percent of Earth's land and oceans, tackle pollution, and provide poorer countries with greater conservation finance.

Observers have noted the sluggish pace of the negotiations in Yerevan, despite indigenous leaders and civil society activists appealing with nations to act with greater urgency.

Around 70 government ministers joined the fray this week in an effort to nudge things along but no major decisions are expected until the final moments of this summit.

The COP17 presidency "is really keen to come to a conclusion and to not drag it on for too long. Of course, we don't want that to be based then on lowering ambition, there is always a risk of that," said Broekhoven.

At the last biodiversity summit in Colombia in 2024, talks ran overtime as nations haggled over conservation finance and ended without a deal. Negotiations resumed in Rome in early 2025 where an agreement was reached.

The COP17 summit is also expected to decide on Friday whether Panama or Ecuador will host the next biodiversity summit in 2028.

G.Collins--SFF