COP17 in Yerevan: Armenia Hosts the World for Nature, Day by Day
Araz Tavitian5 min read
In this article (6)
From 19 to 30 October, Yerevan hosts COP17, the UN Biodiversity Conference, where the world checks for the first time how far it has come on its 2030 targets for nature. I am here for Aypoupen, and this page grows day by day with my films and a short account of what I saw.
COP17 is the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. In December 2022, in Montreal, the world agreed 23 targets to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. In Yerevan, for the first time, countries review together how far they have come. The first answer came here on 15 October, before the conference had even opened, and it was sobering: fewer than half of the national targets assessed are on track.
For Armenia it is a big moment. In August, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia had never hosted an event of this scale. Armenia will hold the presidency of the conference until 2028, with its Minister of Environment, Hambardzum Matevosyan, as President of COP17.
A vote in Cali
How did Armenia get it? In 2016 the Convention decided that the presidency would rotate among the UN’s regional groups, and COP17 fell to the Eastern European group. Only two countries offered to host, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the group could not agree. So at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, on 31 October 2024, the Parties held a secret ballot. Armenia won, 65 votes to 58. Armenia’s Ministry of Environment says it was the first time a COP host was chosen by vote.
What Armenia wants
What does Armenia want from COP17? As host, it brings four proposals: incentives that reward protecting nature, not harming it; a technology hub to monitor the state of nature; a global platform for places outside protected areas that also conserve nature, to help conserve at least 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030; and a platform for mountains and fresh water, for which Armenia plans to present Lake Sevan as its example. At home, Armenia’s own national plan aims to cut the phosphorus and nitrogen polluting Sevan by at least 30 per cent by 2030, partly through farming that respects nature. What will the farmers gain from it? That is my question.
Why it matters to us
Why should it matter to us in the diaspora? It matters because this conference is about the land itself: the lake, the mountains, the forests and the villages. Many rooms at the venue carry the names of Armenian places: Gyumri, Jermuk, Goris, Tatev. For twelve days, the world meets in rooms named after our towns and villages.
I’m Araz, from Cyprus, accredited for Aypoupen. The numbers will come from the podium. I will look for the people behind them: the farmers, the shepherds, the fishers of Sevan.
Day by day
The newest day comes first. This page was last updated on 17 October 2026.
Day 1, 15 October: the world’s nature report card
I arrived at the Meridian Expo to collect my badge. That afternoon, in the press room of the Blue Zone, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, launched State of Biodiversity Action, which the Convention calls the first global assessment of progress on the nature targets agreed for 2030. At twenty to five he walked in, right past my camera.
He brought good news and bad news: nearly 90 per cent of countries have set national targets for nature, but fewer than half of the targets assessed are on track. If current commitments were met, he said, only 26 per cent of terrestrial and 12 per cent of marine ecosystems would be protected by 2030.
Astrid Schomaker, who leads the Convention’s secretariat, said progress lagged where ministries other than environment, such as finance, agriculture and energy, had to act, and added: “Finance is there.” Hambardzum Matevosyan, the incoming President of COP17, said biodiversity “cannot remain the responsibility of environmental ministries alone”.
Then I walked through the Armenia pavilion: the letters of our alphabet, petroglyphs in neon light, a waterfall hall and a stone carved like a vishap. The report is at cbd.int/globalreview/report2026.
COP17, in short
| What | COP17, the UN Biodiversity Conference, is the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, hosted by Armenia. |
|---|---|
| Where | The Blue Zone, for accredited participants, is at the Meridian Expo in Yerevan, where the negotiations, the plenaries and the press conferences take place. The Green Zone, open to the public, is at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex every day from 19 to 30 October, with events from the morning into the evening. |
| When | COP17 runs from Monday 19 to Friday 30 October 2026, after its opening ceremony on Sunday 18 October. The Leaders’ Summit came first: an opening ceremony on the evening of Thursday 15 October, and the summit itself on Friday 16 October. Ministers meet in the high-level segment on 27 and 28 October, and Armenia’s platform for mountains and fresh water is to be launched on 27 October. |
| How to follow | Sessions are streamed live on UN Web TV, and the daily programme is on the Convention’s site. Armenia’s host site is cop17yerevan.am. My films, narrated in Western Armenian with subtitles, are all in one playlist on the Aypoupen channel, COP17 Yerevan Armenia October 2026, and this page is updated as each day’s film goes up. |
| Whom to ask | For the conference and its documents, contact the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (cbd.int). For Armenia’s presidency and its plans, contact the Ministry of Environment of Armenia (environment.gov.am) or visit cop17yerevan.am. For the Green Zone programme, see cop17yerevangreenzone.com. For anything you want me to find out here, write to me in the comments under my films. |
Every film I make in Yerevan goes into one playlist, COP17 Yerevan Armenia October 2026. Subscribe to Aypoupen on YouTube, and come back to this page as the days go by.