This month’s biodiversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia, aims to push governments to meet the 23 targets agreed at Cop15 in 2022

This month, nearly every country on Earth will return to the question of how to stem the rapid destruction of the natural world. Humans are driving it, but so far we have not found a way to stop it.

In late 2022, governments reached an ambitious once-in-a-decade deal to better protect nature amid scientific warnings that the planet is going through the largest loss of life since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now, they are assessing their progress on the targets for the first time.

​The world pledged to halt biodiversity loss by 2030, but as Cop17 delegates meet in Armenia next week the outlook is bleak and optimism has faded

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The world has lost its way on nature once again. Next week, biodiversity Cop17 begins in Yerevan, Armenia, and expectations are low. Very low.

Almost four years ago, governments reached an historic agreement at the biodiversity Cop15 to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems – to rapturous applause in Montreal, Canada. I still remember the excitement in the hall in the early hours of that freezing December morning.

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