Armenia’s opposition has criticised the government’s allocation of ֏18.5 billion ($51 million) for the COP17 biodiversity summit, arguing the amount was excessive and opens the state to corruption risks. In response, the government said it was the UN, and not Yerevan, that hired companies and decided on the venue for the convention.
COP17, not to be confused with the more prominent COP31 climate change summit scheduled for November in Antalya, Turkey, will take place in Yerevan from 19–30 October.
This convention concerns the protection of biodiversity, and sets 23 targets for halting biodiversity loss by 2030, including the protection of 30% of land and sea.
On Monday, the opposition questioned Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Abisoghomonyan regarding the government’s overall spending on COP17. Strong Armenia MP Lena Matevosyan criticised the spending on advertising and the selection of the procurement companies without competition. She was particularly critical of the decision to transfer prepayment to the company responsible for the advertising, Dopping Space. This is the same company that organised the Jennifer Lopez and Snoop Dogg concerts in Yerevan, and which has still failed to return $1.4 million to the government.
While Abisoghomonyan did not address the criticism and said the overall spending will be known only after the end of the conference, on Tuesday the Ministry of Environment explained that the Armenian government did not have a say in the selection of the venue or the choice of the companies that organised the events. They also announced that the government plans to spend ֏18.5 billion ($51 million) from the state budget.
‘The selection of the venues and the work to adapt them were not carried out at the discretion of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, but were determined by the criteria and requirements set by the UN for organising an international conference of this scale’, the statement says.
The conference has two venues. The first, where the Green Zone is located, is the Karen Demchyan Sport Musical Complex. This venue is open to the public and features pavilions of various organisations. The Blue Zone, which is closed and dedicated to official state delegations for negotiations, will be located in the Meridian Exhibition Centre in the Hrazdan Valley. The road leading to the venue is still under construction.
The ministry also addressed corruption concerns when choosing a procurement company, stating that 12 organisations submitted applications, including two foreign ones. The list of the 10 organisations that met the established requirements was handed over to the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. After receiving the list, the UN carried out the selection and evaluation of the organisations without the Armenian government’s involvement.
COP and Caucasusian politics
In 2024, Azerbaijan hosted the larger COP29 climate conference. Earlier, Armenia withdrew its candidacy for hosting in support of Azerbaijan’s own bid. Azerbaijan’s Presidential Administration and the Armenian Prime Minister shared a joint statement.
‘As a sign of good faith, Armenia supports the bid of the Republic of Azerbaijan to host the 29th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by withdrawing its own candidacy. Armenia and Azerbaijan do hope that the other countries within the Eastern European Group will also support Azerbaijan’s bid to host. As a sign of good gesture, Azerbaijan supports the Armenian candidature for Eastern European Group COP Bureau membership’, the statement reads.
Despite this gesture, Armenia boycotted the COP29 in Baku, arguing that it would not be appropriate to attend while Armenian prisoners of war were still being held in Baku.
‘In my personal view, without that [release] it was very hard to imagine Armenia’s participation in the event’, Civil Contract MP Sarghis Khandanyan told RFE/RL at the time.
The selection of Azerbaijan to host COP29 in Baku sparked significant international debate, given the country’s economic and political profile. Critics, including organisations such as Human Rights Watch, have expressed concerns about a global climate summit being overseen by a country that relies heavily on oil and gas revenues. International observers also drew attention to the country’s restrictive political environment, noting an increase in the detention of local journalists and civil society activists in the lead-up to the conference. The event was also surrounded by diplomatic tensions following Azerbaijan’s 2023 attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the displacement of the region’s population.
Ahead of COP17 in Armenia, on Saturday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan opened the Amulsar gold mine — a long-stalled project that has been in the pipeline since 2016 amidst continued environmental protests. Pashinyan said the opening of the controversial mine without protests was a ‘success story’.
OC MediaAni Ghulinyan
Construction of the gold mine, located in Armenia’s Vayots Dzor province, began in 2016 but has been halted since June 2018 due to local protesters blocking access to the project. The blockade ended during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. Environmental activists have expressed concerns that the mining process and the use of cyanide to extract gold could affect the Arpa and Vorotan rivers, and consequently Lake Sevan — Armenia’s largest freshwater reserve.