COP17 and COP31: Your Guide to Summit Season

Do the words “COP17” and “COP31” mean anything to you yet?

They will soon, whether or not anyone explains them properly. So let’s do that now.

A season of summits is about to start. And each one decides something that reaches Kenya, whether or not Kenya is in the room. Our forests, our wetlands, our farms, our wildlife and the money that’s meant to protect them all get talked about in rooms far from home.

So what’s coming, and why should you care?

What’s happening, and when?

5 to 8 October: Pre-COP in Fiji, with a leaders’ event in Tuvalu. This is the warm-up for the big climate conference. Fiji, Tuvalu and Australia are hosting the official Pre-COP ministerial meeting and leaders’ event to bring global climate decision-makers to the Pacific before COP31. The idea is simple: let world leaders see Pacific climate destruction for themselves.

Why watch? Because small island states are usually the loudest, clearest voices on climate urgency. Some of their land is literally disappearing. Even before it starts, Amnesty International has warned that many world leaders are expected to stay away, and Fiji’s Environment Minister has said the summit will go ahead with or without them. That alone tells you something.

19 to 30 October, Yerevan, Armenia: CBD COP17, the UN biodiversity conference. This is the nature COP. Here, countries will carry out the first global review of collective progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the deal agreed in 2022 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. That framework has 23 targets for 2030, including the famous “30×30” goal to conserve 30% of the world’s land and waters.

In other words, COP17 is a report card. Halfway to 2030, are we actually doing what we promised?

9 to 20 November, Antalya, Türkiye: COP31, the UN climate conference. This is the one most people mean when they say “COP”. Türkiye is hosting, with a World Leaders’ Summit on 11 and 12 November, while Australia serves as President of Negotiations, leading the formal talks.

And here’s one for us to keep in mind: the conference after COP31 is set for Addis Ababa in 2027. The climate COP is coming to our region. What we learn and say this year matters for next year.

Why does this matter for Kenya?

Because these conversations aren’t as far away as they seem.

Nairobi is home to the UN Environment Programme. In May 2024, Nairobi even hosted a key CBD meeting where countries reviewed how well they were turning the biodiversity framework into national action. Decisions made in Yerevan and Antalya will shape the funding, the rules and the expectations that land on Kenyan conservancies, county governments and communities.

So yes, it’s our business too.

Three things I’ll be watching

→ Finance. Is the money actually moving?

Under Target 19 of the biodiversity framework, countries agreed to mobilise at least $200 billion a year for biodiversity by 2030, from all sources. That includes international finance from developed to developing countries of at least $20 billion a year by 2025, rising to $30 billion a year by 2030.

Sounds big. But the same framework recognises a biodiversity finance gap of $700 billion a year. And there’s a warning sign: while recent data suggested the world was on track for the $20 billion goal, developed countries are cutting back overseas development assistance, which could put that target at risk.

Promises are easy. Payments are harder. I’ll be watching the payments.

→ Who’s in the room. Do the people protecting nature have a real seat, or a side one?

Indigenous peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least a quarter of the world’s land surface, land that overlaps about 40% of all protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. The 30×30 target depends on that land. So do the people who live on it get to shape the decisions, or just live with them?

This question matters deeply here, where communities live alongside our parks and conservancies.

→ Nature and climate together. Forests, wetlands and farmland sit under both agreements. They’re one story, not two separate ones.

Even the CBD itself says global climate goals and the biodiversity framework targets must be pursued in tandem. A wetland stores carbon and shelters wildlife. A forest cools the planet and feeds a community. If the climate COP and the nature COP keep talking past each other, we’ll keep getting half-solutions.

What can you do?

You don’t need a badge or a plane ticket to take part.

• Follow the news from Fiji and Tuvalu this week. Listen to what Pacific leaders are saying. Their present could be our future.
• Learn the basics of the biodiversity framework before 19 October. Even just 30×30 and the finance targets will help you follow the conversation.
• Ask your leaders what Kenya is taking to Yerevan and Antalya. What are our positions? Who’s on the delegation? Are communities represented?
• Share what you learn. Most people around you haven’t heard of COP17. You can change that.

I’ll break COP17 down properly here on the blog when it opens on 19 October, and I’ll follow up before COP31.

Until then, keep asking the simple questions. Who’s paying? Who’s deciding? And who’s being left out?