According to the U.N.’s environment watchdog, investments in safeguarding and effectively managing the world’s ecosystems must more than quadruple to $384 billion annually by 2025 in order to combat the risks of climate change and the depletion of natural resources.
The analysis will help countries reach an agreement at a biodiversity summit beginning next week in Montreal, Canada, to protect the environment and wildlife from additional extinctions and the deterioration of species and ecosystems.
The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) stated in research that $154 billion is being spent annually, primarily by governments, on “nature-based solutions,” which are activities to better manage and protect waterways, land, air, and wildlife.
“This will have to increase by several orders of magnitude if we are to tackle the triple crisis of land degradation, climate, and environment,” said Ivo Mulder, head of UNEP’s climate finance unit.
“About 50% of global GDP is dependent on healthy and well-functioning ecosystems (so) it shouldn’t be too hard a stretch even if we are living through multiple crises” such as the war in Ukraine and spiraling inflation, he added. Governments are also spending $500 billion to $1 trillion per year on subsidies for agriculture, fossil fuels, and fisheries, the survey found.
More than 100 countries pledged their support to safeguard biodiversity last year
In the Chinese city of Kunming, more than 100 countries pledged their support for efforts to safeguard biodiversity last year, but they were unable to reach a consensus on matters such as how to pay for conservation efforts in less developed nations. The meeting was scheduled to take place in Kunming this year, but it was moved because of the city’s zero-COVID curbs. The presidency will continue to be held by China.
In Aichi, Japan, in 2010, when the last biodiversity accord was signed, world leaders established goals to try to decrease loss by 2020, none of which were achieved.
Private sector actors, who despite their pledges to reduce carbon emissions and deforestation only account for 17% of investment on nature-based solutions, “will have to combine ‘net zero’ with ‘nature positive,'” according to UNEP.