António Guterres says "the war on nature has not ended" as biodiversity goals lag

Four years after nearly every government signed the 2022 Montreal biodiversity agreement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at a report launch before Cop17 in Yerevan, Armenia, that the plan’s objectives remain far from realized and natural systems are still under serious strain. The pact called for protecting 30% of the planet for nature, restoring degraded ecosystems and overhauling environmentally harmful subsidies. The agreement has so far completed none of its targets, and countries are on course to miss nearly all of them, according to the report’s findings. Guterres also pressed governments to eliminate fossil-fuel subsidies, which he said harm both the climate and biodiversity. Delegates are meeting to determine how to fulfill the Montreal commitments as scientists warn that roughly a million species face extinction.