{
  "id": 17388920,
  "title": "‘Bunch of baloney’: calls grow for Cop summit reforms as countries on track to fail nature targets",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/31/bunch-of-baloney-calls-grow-for-cop-summit-reforms-as-countries-on",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-31T10:01:29.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Business",
    "slug": "guardian-business",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/31/cop17-reforms-fails-to-deliver-targets"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Negotiations at the Cop17 biodiversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia have concluded, with critics arguing the system designed to protect nature is allowing \"one idiot\" to hinder progress. Countries are on track to fail their own promises to halt the destruction of the natural world, and governments are projected to continue their record of never meeting a target in the convention's 34-year history. Agreed at the summit, targets aim to protect 30% of the planet for nature, restore nearly a third of degraded ecosystems, and reform $500bn of environmentally harmful subsidies. Despite some progress, countries are way off track on meeting nearly all the targets. The UK is set to meet only three of the 23 targets. During the conference, environment ministers, activists, and officials called for major reforms to the way biodiversity summits function, arguing that the current process allows decisions to be blocked by a single dissenting member. One expert described the process as \"designed to fail,\" and suggested a single environmental Cop each year to tackle climate, biodiversity, plastics, and other issues. However, the final agreement left key decisions on a fund to mobilize resources from firms that profit from biodiversity, such as pharmaceutical companies, uncertain, with the fund still having raised only over $10,000 after two years.",
  "summary": "Cop17, focused on protecting nature and restoring ecosystems, concludes on Saturday with critics saying system allows ‘one idiot’ to stall progress Calls are growing for major reforms to UN biodiversity summits as countries fail to deliver on their promises to halt the destruction of the natural world, with governments likely on track to continue their record of never having met a target in the…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}