Guterres calls for funding shift to tackle biodiversity loss

Governments should stop subsidizing activities that damage nature and channel the savings toward environmental protection, UN Secretary-General Guterres said at a leaders’ summit in Yerevan, Armenia, before the COP17 UN biodiversity conference.

Guterres put biodiversity funding at less than half the $200 billion agreed through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. He said countries also lacked sufficient technical resources, cooperation and data, with significant gaps in national pledges to curb incentives harmful to nature.

Activities damaging nature receive $30 for every dollar spent protecting it, he said. He cited $7.3 trillion directed in 2023 toward sectors including fossil fuels, destructive agribusiness and polluting heavy industry.

Achieving international goals for biodiversity, climate and land restoration would require $571 billion a year for nature-based solutions by 2030, Guterres said. That represents about 0.5% of global gross domestic product. He called for greater corporate participation, citing the UN-backed Cali Fund as a vehicle for businesses that benefit from nature to support conservation.

National biodiversity targets have been established by nearly 90% of parties, and more than half have drawn up road maps, he said. Yet current pledges, even if delivered, would leave protection at 26% for terrestrial ecosystems and 12% for marine ecosystems by 2030, short of the framework’s 30% goal.

Guterres endorsed the Yerevan Declaration’s pledge to incorporate biodiversity into public budgets, policies and regulations. He said debt, tight government budgets and an inequitable international financial system had constrained developing countries’ investment in nature and human development.