UN biodiversity summit: nearly 200 countries falling short of 30% land and water protection goal | Pacific Post
UN biodiversity summit: nearly 200 countries falling short of 30% land and water protection goal
With only 26% of land and 12% of ocean on track to be protected by 2030, delegates at the COP17 summit face a widening gap between pledges and funding.
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By Contributing Analyst·Published
Manta rays swim over a coral reef in open ocean water · Source: AP Photo/Claudia Rosel, File
Nearly 200 countries are falling short of a United Nations target to protect 30 percent of the world's land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, according to assessments presented at this month's UN biodiversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia.
Current trajectories show only around 26 percent of land and 12 percent of ocean areas on track to meet the so called 30x30 goal, leaving a substantial gap between the commitments countries made and the progress achieved so far. The United States is not a party to the underlying treaty.
Financing remains one of the central obstacles. Countries have raised between roughly $75 billion and $92 billion annually in recent years, well short of the $200 billion a year they pledged to reach by 2030. A separate commitment to redirect $500 billion in subsidies considered harmful to biodiversity, such as certain agricultural and fossil fuel subsidies, has seen little concrete progress, with few governments having identified which subsidies they intend to cut.
The stakes of the shortfall are significant. Global wildlife populations declined by an estimated 73 percent between 1970 and 2022, and roughly a million plant and animal species are considered at risk of extinction, according to figures cited at the summit. Delegates meeting through the end of October are expected to debate how to close both the funding gap and the protection gap in the years remaining before the 2030 deadline.
