Leaders confront finance gaps and harmful subsidies at UN’s COP17 biodiversity summit
A mural of elephants greets delegates at COP17, highlighting the stark financial imbalance threatening global biodiversity.
Visitors entering the main hallway of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity conference (COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia, are met by a striking mural of a herd of elephants.
The installation, organized by the NGO Friends of the Earth International, uses the “elephants in the room” metaphor to draw attention to entrenched financial systems that often go unnoticed yet drive widespread biodiversity loss.
“It is astounding that the global economy is spending only $1 on nature protection for each $30 that it spends on nature destruction,” said An Lambrechts, a biodiversity politics expert with Greenpeace International, during a COP17 press briefing.
Lambrechts referenced a key finding from the State of Finance for Nature 2026 report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Supporting the urgency, WWF International’s latest Living Planet report revealed that populations of wild vertebrates have declined by an average of 73 % between 1970 and 2022. The authors identified climate change, agriculture and, notably, the flow of money toward nature‑averse industries and practices as major drivers.
Image by John Cannon/Mongabay.
The 196 parties that adopted the Kunming‑Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022 set out Target 18, which aims to slash $500 billion annually from subsidies and other financial support for activities that harm biodiversity.
Despite this ambition, financial support for “nature‑negative” activities such as unsustainable fishing and industrial agriculture remains high — at $7.3…
The mural and the stark figures presented at COP17 underscore the financial challenges that leaders must address to halt the accelerating loss of plant, animal and fungal life.
