Korea joins Yerevan Pathway as biodiversity summit ends a day late

The environment ministry said Monday that South Korea took part in the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, where parties agreed the Yerevan Pathway to accelerate progress toward global biodiversity targets for 2030.

The pathway sets out ways to speed up implementation: mobilizing public and private finance at home and abroad, expanding the means of implementation for developing countries and widening participation by local governments, women and youth. The talks ran a day past their scheduled close of Oct. 30 and ended with a final decision text at around 9:30 a.m. local time on Oct. 31.

The review was the first global stocktake since the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted in Montreal in December 2022. Of the parties, 129 had submitted national reports by March, and fewer than half of their national targets were rated as on track, with a lack of finance and technology cited as the biggest obstacle.

Parties also laid the groundwork for operating the Cali Fund, set up at the 16th conference in October 2024 to share revenues from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources with developing countries that supply those resources. The summit agreed interim allocations from the fund and transitional issuance of contribution certificates, leaving detailed rules on corporate contribution criteria and the legal effect of the certificates to a working group between sessions.

A Korean contribution drew explicit thanks in the decision text: the Bio Bridge Initiative, launched at the 12th conference in Pyeongchang in 2014, was cited by the convention secretariat for promoting scientific and technical cooperation among member states. The ministry also pointed to a decision encouraging parties to link biodiversity and climate action in national strategy, including through nature-based solutions.

The conference drew about 20,000 participants from 196 parties, international organizations and expert groups under the theme "Taking Action for Nature." The next conference is scheduled for 2028 in Ecuador.

"The conference was a chance to make known our efforts to implement the global biodiversity framework and to exchange with each country," Kim said. "We will continue to contribute to the international community's biodiversity conservation efforts through technology cooperation and capacity building."