Biodiversity COP17 in Yerevan: What the First Global Review Means for Business

The Global Review shows advances on all 23 targets, but not fast enough to reach them by 2030. Protected areas illustrate the gap: one assessment cited by the Stockholm Environment Institute puts coverage at about 20% of land and 10% of ocean under national jurisdiction, against a 30% goal for both. Progress is slower and more uneven on the targets tied to economy and finance. The Convention secretariat's August statement adds that fewer than half of the national targets countries judged aligned with the framework are on track.

The review rests on what countries have submitted. Carbon Brief's count as of 16 October shows 113 of 196 parties (58%) with a new national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP), up from 55 a year ago. In addition, 175 parties (89%) have at least one national target, and 73% have filed a seventh national report.

Four megadiverse countries still have no new NBSAP: Papua New Guinea, Peru, South Africa and the United States, which is not a party to the Convention.

Finance is where the Global Review looks weakest, and it is likely to be the most contested item in Yerevan. Target 19 calls for at least $200bn a year for biodiversity from all sources by 2030. Within that, developed countries should provide developing countries at least $20bn a year by 2025 and $30bn a year by 2030. The UN stocktaking report published on 10 September says the 2025 milestone was likely not achieved.

Countries' own reports add up to 7.7bn in international public funding over 2020-23, about $4.4bn a year. The OECD puts the average at about 6.1bn a year for 2023-25, nearly $4bn short of the goal.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, set up at COP15, has received $387.2m in signed commitments from 11 countries and Quebec since August 2023. The Cali Fund, which asks companies that use digital sequence information to pay in, has received two contributions totalling $6,000. A Grantham Research Institute paper estimates it could raise $929m a year under realistic voluntary uptake, or $3.6bn if all 21,690 eligible firms paid. Payments remain voluntary, and Cali Watch says no government has passed a law requiring them. Armenia, as COP17 president, has named operationalising the fund a priority, and its contribution rules and allocation criteria are still open to revision at this meeting.

Target 18 adds a second front: governments are asked to identify and reform subsidies that harm nature, cutting them by at least $500bn a year by 2030. SEI expects that to be contentious at COP17.

The Global Review is the centrepiece, but governments will also take decisions that decide what happens after it. The conference runs under the theme "Taking Action for Nature" and expects 10,000 to 15,000 participants, with Armenia's environment minister Hambardzum Matevosyan set to take the presidency. The Leaders' Summit on 16 October has already adopted the Yerevan Declaration, and ministers meet in a high-level segment on 27-28 October. Two protocol meetings run alongside COP17: CP-MOP12 on the Cartagena Protocol and NP-MOP6 on the Nagoya Protocol.

The main items on the agenda are:

• The Global Review and the response to it, including how to accelerate implementation.
• Stronger monitoring, reporting and review of the framework.
• Resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism, including the Cali Fund.
• The economic drivers of nature loss, including investment incentives and the role of emerging biodiversity credit markets.
• A Gender Action Plan and updated guidance on synthetic biology and wildlife management.

Because the review is not legally binding, the test is what Parties do with it. Groups such as BirdLife International are pressing for decisions that close the implementation gaps it identifies.

Target 15 of the framework asks businesses to assess, disclose and reduce their biodiversity-related risks and impacts, and the tools for doing so are being reshaped this month. SEI's reading of the review is that more companies are doing this and that science-based metrics are still evolving.

• 13 October: TNFD, SBTN and the Nature Positive Initiative issued aligned updates: TNFD LEAP v2.0 for assessment, SBTN target-setting methods v2.0, and four core state-of-nature indicators (extent, condition, extinction risk, population) distilled from more than 600 metrics. The aim is that companies can reuse data and analysis across TNFD reporting and SBTN target setting.
• 22 October (scheduled): the ISSB's nature-related exposure draft, timed for COP17, with comments open until 19 February 2027. This date comes from a single 16 October report, so treat it as tentative. The draft is an IFRS Practice Statement, which means non-mandatory guidance that supplements IFRS S1 and S2 without amending them.
• Adoption: more than 800 organisations have committed to TNFD-aligned reporting.

The constraint is data. The IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, approved in February 2026, found that businesses are central to reversing nature loss but often lack reliable data, models and scenarios.

The Cali Fund shows the other side of the picture. Company action is still voluntary, and COP17 is where governments may decide whether that changes.

The outcome will not be clear until the closing plenary on 30 October, but several dates along the way are worth marking:

• 22 October: the ISSB nature exposure draft, if the reported date holds.
• 24 October: the European Business & Biodiversity Platform session on scaling private-sector action at the Business and Finance Hub, 10:00-10:45.
• 30 October: the conference closes and final decisions are adopted.
• 5 November: SEI's online post-match analysis of the outcomes, 14:00 CET.

Three questions will show how far the meeting moves the picture:

1. Do the finance decisions go beyond restating the $20bn and $30bn benchmarks, or do they add new delivery mechanisms?
2. Are the Cali Fund's contribution rules or allocation criteria changed?
3. Does the subsidy debate under Target 18 produce a concrete reform path?

For reporting teams, two steps make sense now. First, compare the nature data you hold against the updated TNFD and SBTN guidance, since that is the quickest way to find gaps before the ISSB draft lands. Second, if your products draw on digital sequence information, which pharmaceutical, cosmetics, agriculture and biotechnology companies routinely do, watch what Yerevan decides on the Cali Fund.