2026 is going to be quite the eventful year for Armenia, with parliamentary elections in June and the country hosting global events like COP17—the UN’s biodiversity summit—in October. To understand what COP17 means for Armenia, the preparations required and the challenges involved in hosting global negotiations about the future of the planet, we spoke with Tatiana Der Avedissian, head of business development for Economist Impact’s World Ocean Initiative, and sits on The Economist Group’s sustainability steering committee.