Guilbeault urges Cop17 timetable for $30 bn nature finance

Steven Guilbeault urged Cop17 ministers in Yerevan to set a timetable for a $30 billion nature-finance pledge by 2030, in a Guardian opinion article published Oct. 20.

In the Oct. 20 Guardian opinion article, Guilbeault said the demand matters because governments had fallen short of a $20 billion target by 2025, leaving the next $30 billion promise exposed to delay.

“Nearly four years later, the reality is that we are not delivering on those promises,” Guilbeault wrote, referring to the biodiversity agreement reached in Montreal in December 2022.

Guilbeault framed biodiversity protection as an economic-security issue rather than a discretionary environmental programme. “Nature is a critical asset for national prosperity and economic security, and the evidence is already there,” he wrote.

The 2022 Montreal accord brought together nearly 200 countries around goals to stop biodiversity decline and restore ecosystems by 2030. Guilbeault said the deal included commitments to place 30% of land and sea areas under protection, mobilise $200 billion a year for nature and confront $500 billion in subsidies that contribute to environmental damage.

His article said overseas development finance dropped 23% last year, the largest fall on record, and was expected to decline further before the end of 2026. Biodiversity-specific funding within that flow fell 17%, according to figures cited in the article.

Guilbeault set out three requests for ministers at Cop17: protect public finance from further slippage, involve finance ministers in subsidy reform and close the divide between land and ocean protection. He said finance ministers should meet within two years to plan how to shift harmful subsidies.

The subsidy challenge has widened, according to the figures Guilbeault cited. Harmful subsidies rose to $2.6 trillion in recent years, while only 15% of countries’ biodiversity plans addressed the financing gap. Spending that damages nature is 30 times higher than money directed to protection and restoration, he wrote.

Marine protection is another shortfall. Guilbeault said national commitments cover 27% of terrestrial land, compared with 12% of oceans under similar protective arrangements, and called for progress ahead of an Ocean Cop in New York in January 2027.

The article was an opinion piece and did not include responses from government delegations or a draft negotiating text. Guilbeault acknowledged the competing pressures ministers face, including war, elections, trade disputes and tight budgets, but argued those pressures should not delay implementation of the 2022 accord.

Source: opinion article, The Guardian, Oct. 20, 2026