A wetland, a forest or a green space provides services that do not always come in the form of a bill. This is one of the difficulties in financing nature: expenditure is visible in a budget, while some of the value lies in damage avoided or benefits shared among several stakeholders.
COP17 on biodiversity, held in Yerevan in October 2026, brought this issue back to the fore. But to understand the sums being discussed after the conference, we must first distinguish three things: pledges announced, flows actually measured and the estimated benefits of projects. Adding them together or comparing them without care produces striking figures, but not necessarily an accurate picture.
What the conference announced
The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity describes the Yerevan conference as the first global review of collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal framework. It says that a set of decisions was adopted, including the “Yerevan Pathway”, a negotiated response to this review.
The same page reports $1.8 billion in financing pledges announced at the end of the high-level segment on 27 and 28 October. The word “pledges” is essential. It does not mean that this sum has already been paid, spent on the ground or turned into ecological results.
The useful questions for tracking these commitments come next: who is expected to pay, on what timetable, through which mechanism and for what actions? A political announcement is one step. Disbursement, project delivery and observation of its effects are others.
The 7,300 billion and the 220 billion do not mean the same thing
The UN Environment Programme’s “State of Finance for Nature 2026” report focuses in particular on flows in 2023. Its publication year should therefore not be mistaken for the year in which the spending was measured.
UNEP estimates that $7,300 billion in financing goes towards activities harmful to nature, compared with 220 billion supporting nature-based solutions. It sums up the gap as being on the order of thirty to one. The negative flows considered include, in particular, fossil fuel subsidies and investment in high-impact sectors.
This is not a comparison between two COP17 budgets. Nor is it the amount in a pot that could be transferred in its entirety, overnight, to environmental protection groups. The finding concerns the direction of a range of financing.
The issue therefore goes beyond finding new donors: a policy can devote resources to conservation while maintaining incentives elsewhere that are harmful to ecosystems. Looking only at the “nature protection” line is not enough to assess its coherence.
Redirecting spending requires a plan, not just subtraction
Saying that money needs to be better directed leaves the question of transition open. Which practices need to change? Who depends on the current arrangements? What support would make change possible? How can we check that the new financing does not simply shift the damage elsewhere?
These questions help examine a concrete reform; they do not describe a measure already adopted by a country. They avoid presenting any reallocation as instant and without consequences for the people concerned.
An announcement can thus be assessed on several distinct levels: the amount committed, the conditions attached to its use, the activities that are no longer supported and the effects observed. None of these elements automatically replaces the others.
The benefits of a natural environment are not always revenue
In a summary published on 5 October 2026, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, or IISD, brings together 45 project assessments in 29 countries. It estimates that nature-based infrastructure delivers $3.21 in benefits for every dollar invested.
The summary uses the SAVi methodology to assess ecological and social services, including water regulation.
The result does not promise an investor a payment of $3.21 into their account for every dollar spent. Nor does it guarantee this ratio for every new project. It comes from a set of assessments, using a particular methodology and in specific contexts.
How can a project be judged beyond the announced figure?
Imagine a local authority comparing several ways of reducing flood risk. This example is a framework for consideration, not an account of a project visited. An overall figure for benefits would not be enough to make a choice: the assumptions, the period studied and the people actually protected would need to be known.
Maintenance costs, effects on habitats and the limits of the expected protection would also need to be examined. A solution may address some events without eliminating all risks. Describing this limitation does not diminish its value; it makes it possible to compare it honestly with other options.
Finally, monitoring must make promises measurable. Which indicators will be recorded? How often? Who will be able to verify the results? The number of euros or dollars spent tells us about the financial effort, but not, by itself, about the state of an environment.
After the announcements, track where the money goes
Three complementary perspectives emerge. The COP17 pledges provide information about political commitments. UNEP’s flows shed light on the overall direction of financing. IISD’s assessments show how some of nature’s value can be incorporated into project analysis.
These figures do not replace one another. Their usefulness lies precisely in the fact that they measure different stages and scopes.
For biodiversity, then, the next test will not be only the size of an announcement. It will be whether its journey can be tracked: a decision, accessible financing, an action suited to the environment, and then verifiable effects. It is at this scale that nature ceases to be merely a budgetary promise.
Illustrative photograph: a wetland at Lake Andes, South Dakota, in August 2019. It does not depict a project assessed in the reports cited. Credit: USFWS Mountain-Prairie / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
