Nearly two years after the original international deadline, 58% of nations worldwide have successfully fulfilled a United Nations call to submit new national strategies aimed at addressing accelerating nature loss, according to a comprehensive new analysis by Carbon Brief.

The findings arrive just as governments prepare to convene in Yerevan, Armenia, next week for the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The upcoming summit represents a critical milestone for global environmental diplomacy, marking the exact halfway point of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)—a landmark agreement established in 2022 with the overarching mission to halt and reverse the decline of nature by 2030.

Under the terms of the GBF, countries were originally asked to release updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) by the start of the COP16 biodiversity summit held in Cali, Colombia, in October 2024. However, progress stalled significantly in the initial stages. When the deadline arrived, a mere 15% of nations had managed to submit their formal action plans.

Confronted with widespread delays, delegates at COP16 negotiated and agreed to a revised text that strongly "urged" member countries to release their missing NBSAPs "as soon as possible."

Recent tracking data compiled by Carbon Brief indicates a substantial surge in compliance since last year. A total of 113 countries have now officially submitted new NBSAPs, representing a dramatic increase from the 55 nations that had done so a year prior. This brings the current global compliance rate to 58% among the 196 parties to the convention.

Nevertheless, the road to comprehensive global coverage remains uneven, with notable gaps persisting among major economies and biodiversity hotspots as the international community prepares for the global stocktake in Armenia.

Global Review and the Kunming-Montreal Framework

The upcoming summit in Yerevan will serve as the primary stage for the first comprehensive global review of countries’ collective progress toward meeting the ambitious targets of the Kunming-Montreal framework.

Adopted in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022, the GBF represents the world’s premier blueprint for ecosystem protection. Its core framework encompasses a detailed roster of 23 specific targets for the year 2030, covering an expansive array of environmental challenges. These include the large-scale restoration of degraded ecosystems, measures to combat climate change, and commitments by developed nations to provide adequate financial assistance to developing countries to help cover the heavy costs of nature conservation.

As part of the monitoring mechanisms embedded within the GBF, governments agreed to a rigorous schedule for tracking and evaluating their domestic actions. This framework mandated the preparation of a consolidated "global report" coordinated by the United Nations, which synthesizes data from national submissions to inform the formal review at COP17.

The UN global report draws directly from countries’ newly published NBSAPs and individual national targets. Additionally, it incorporates data from the seventh national reports, which were officially due to be submitted to the UN earlier this year in February.

According to Carbon Brief’s analysis, the momentum behind these supplementary reporting mechanisms has also improved over time. While only about half of all countries met the initial February deadline for their seventh national reports, that figure has since climbed to 73%. Similarly, the proportion of parties that have established formal national targets—simplified lists of biodiversity goals without the comprehensive implementation plans required for full NBSAPs—has risen from 119 countries at the end of COP16 to 175 countries, or 89% of parties, today.

Regional Shifts and Missing Pledges

The recent push to finalize national strategies has been particularly pronounced across the African continent. Over the past year, a substantial wave of African nations has published new NBSAPs, helping to significantly boost the global compliance total.

Among the African countries that have released their updated plans over the last year are Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Similar progress has been recorded in South America, where additional nations have finalized their strategic frameworks. Notably, this group includes Brazil—widely recognized as the world’s most biodiverse nation—as well as Belize and Chile. Meanwhile, COP17 host nation Armenia released its updated NBSAP earlier this year in April.

Despite this collective progress, significant gaps remain among some of the world’s most critical ecological regions. Four of the globe’s designated "megadiverse" nations—countries that collectively harbor the vast majority of Earth’s plant and animal species—have not yet published new NBSAPs. These nations include Papua New Guinea, Peru, South Africa, and the United States.

The absence of the United States from the official NBSAP roster stems from a distinct institutional status: the US remains the sole UN member country that is not a formal signatory to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. In addition, Russia, which encompasses the largest land area on Earth, has also failed to produce a new NBSAP under the framework.

For countries that were unable to complete fully realized action plans ahead of the initial deadlines, the framework allowed for the submission of standalone national targets as an interim measure. While these targets outline specific environmental ambitions, they lack the operational roadmaps and financial planning inherent in complete NBSAPs.

Financial Hurdles and Support Mechanisms

Throughout the two-year period following the COP16 summit in Cali, numerous developing countries have repeatedly voiced concerns that severe financial constraints have hindered their capacity to draft, finalize, and publish comprehensive NBSAPs. Developing nations have argued that the technical and administrative costs of establishing robust, actionable biodiversity strategies require sustained international financial backing.

To alleviate these pressures, multilateral funding mechanisms have worked to disburse resources to governments in need. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), the primary multilateral fund tasked with assisting nations in preparing their NBSAPs, reported that out of 139 countries that requested financial support following COP16, a total of 120 successfully accessed the necessary funds.

Furthermore, representatives from the UN Environment Programme have indicated that international agencies are actively working to resolve outstanding administrative and technical bottlenecks to ensure that the remaining 19 countries can access financial assistance as soon as possible.

As government ministers, delegates, and environmental experts converge on Yerevan for COP17, the discussions will center heavily on these funding gaps, the adequacy of current national pledges, and the collective ability of the international community to change course and achieve its 2030 targets.