--- title: World Adopts Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030 description: At COP15, a meeting focused on biodiversity, the convening countries agreed to a plan to protect 30% of land and water by 2030. canonical: https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-12-19T13:50:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T15:11:59.624Z article:section: Climate og:title: World Adopts Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030 og:description: The convening countries at the biodiversity COP15 agreed to a plan to protect 30% of land and water by 2030 og:url: https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt236da4b74a79b173/698a38f6d07533a657e6d9c7/COP15-biodiversity-map.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: CANADA-UN-DIPLOMACY-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE-NATURE-CONSERVATION og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: World Adopts Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030 twitter:description: The convening countries at the biodiversity COP15 agreed to a plan to protect 30% of land and water by 2030 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt236da4b74a79b173/698a38f6d07533a657e6d9c7/COP15-biodiversity-map.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Countries Adopt Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030 > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=137f0e3a-b760-4dc3-a09e-309e19f2a574&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Mathieu Dion and Eric Roston / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Mathieu Dion and Eric Roston / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 19, 2022 1:50 PM UTC  People stand on a giant map of Canada during the United the Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Dec. 17, 2022. People stand on a giant map of Canada during the United the Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Dec. 17, 2022. Lars Hagberg—AFP/Getty Images by [Mathieu Dion and Eric Roston / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Mathieu Dion and Eric Roston / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 19, 2022 1:50 PM UTC The threat of a mass extinction of plant and animal species led 195 nations early Monday to agree to protect and restore at least 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030. Rich nations committed to pay an estimated $30 billion a year by 2030 to poorer nations through a new biodiversity fund that will be created under the Global Environment Facility, a 30-year-old organization that supports environmental work. The agreement was reached following two weeks of negotiations at the COP15 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, where arguments over funding [temporarily paused](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/delegates-walk-out-of-key-cop15-biodiversity-funding-talks) talks at one point. “After four years of work, we have now reach\[ed\] the end of our journey,” said COP15’s president Huang Runqiu, adding the framework will guide countries to stop biodiversity loss. Canada’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault, who was hosting the conference, compared the deal to the UN’s landmark Paris agreement, in which countries committed to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally closer to 1.5C. “It is truly a moment that will mark history as Paris did for climate,” Guilbeault said to reporters on Monday. The commitment over international flows is part of a broader move aimed to invest at least [$200 billion annually](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-06/cop15-what-can-you-expect-from-the-un-biodiversity-conference). The bulk of that funding is assumed to come from countries’ domestic spending on nature protection — a flexible descriptor that might include funds for national parks or agriculture, philanthropy and private capital. “There is no deal strong on ambition without money,” said Norway’s climate and environment minister, Espen Barth Eide, in an interview. “Neither is there a deal that is strong on money without ambition because the donors simply won’t pay without ambition. So, in a sense it’s a trade-off.” China, the second largest economy, has held the presidency of the talks since the previous round four years ago. Hundreds of individuals from investment institutions, banks and businesses registered to attend the event, and played an unusually outsized but background role in the lead-up to COP15. A hot debate over what businesses should disclose about their reliance on natural systems, and impacts on them, entered the last days of the talks. Negotiators agreed early on that countries should “ensure” their companies be transparent with regulators, investors and the public, but nations were divided over whether to make this requirement mandatory or not. The word “mandatory” was finally erased from the document. Mandatory reporting was championed by France in pre-negotiations before the Montreal event. “An agreement with 196 parties implies compromises and things that we do not have completely,” said France’s minister for the ecology transition, Christophe Bechu. “What was essential \[is\] we have this base now.” Countries have also agreed to fair and equitable benefit-sharing from the utilization of digital sequence information on genetic resources – which involves using genes in living organisms to create new products. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/"},"headline":"Countries Adopt Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030","datePublished":"2022-12-19T13:50:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T15:11:59.624Z","description":"At COP15, a meeting focused on biodiversity, the convening countries agreed to a plan to protect 30% of land and water by 2030.","url":"https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/","keywords":["climate change","wire","Climate Is Everything"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt236da4b74a79b173/698a38f6d07533a657e6d9c7/COP15-biodiversity-map.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mathieu Dion and Eric Roston / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt236da4b74a79b173/698a38f6d07533a657e6d9c7/COP15-biodiversity-map.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"CANADA-UN-DIPLOMACY-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE-NATURE-CONSERVATION","caption":"CANADA-UN-DIPLOMACY-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE-NATURE-CONSERVATION","creditText":"Lars Hagberg—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6242197/cop15-biodiversity-plan-adopted/","name":"Countries Adopt Plan to Protect 30% of Land and Water by 2030"}}]}] ```