UN Review Finds World Off Track on Nature Goals as Funding Falls Short

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The world will likely miss its 2030 targets to halt and reverse the biodiversity crisis unless countries act much faster and biodiversity funding starts to flow, according to a review by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The first Global Review of Collective Progress found that developed countries are off track to meet their commitment to mobilize $200 billion a year in global funding from all sources for biodiversity by 2030.

Following is a reaction from Zak Smith, director of global biodiversity conservation and senior attorney at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): 

“Budgets show what you value, and the world has not budgeted to protect the nature we all depend on. Governments signed up to this plan, and many are taking steps to implement it – but it remains woefully underfunded. Every year they wait, the damage gets worse and the cleanup costs more. There is still time to turn this around. But crossing our fingers and hoping the money shows up is not a strategy. Leaders from the public and private sectors alike need to step up and truly support what was promised, starting now.”

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Established in 1970, NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council) works to safeguard the earth, its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. Our team of more than 800 lawyers, policy experts, scientists, economists, and communications specialists work across the United States and around the world, from offices in Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Santa Monica, as well as a representative office in Beijing and affiliate offices in New Delhi (through NRDC’s wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, NRDC India Private Limited) and London (through its UK-based partner NRDC International).