COP17 Opens in Armenia to Review Global Biodiversity Progress

Yerevan, Armenia (ANTARA) – The 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17) opened on Sunday (18 October) in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Countries are scheduled to conduct the first global review of collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF).

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared the conference open and urged countries to turn their commitments into concrete action and measurable results ahead of the 2030 deadline for the framework’s targets.

Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said she hoped COP17 would demonstrate that multilateralism works and that the international community can fulfil its commitments.

She said an assessment of the KMGBF and countries’ national reports would help identify implementation gaps and guide efforts to address them.

Adopted in 2022, the KMGBF aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, with a vision of living in harmony with nature by 2050. The global review will assess progress, identify gaps and help determine priority actions to accelerate implementation.

COP17 will run from 19 to 30 October under the theme “Taking Action for Nature”.