Brookings

December 15, 2021
In this fifth interview of the “17 Rooms” podcast, Rosina Bierbaum and Richard Florizone discuss near-term opportunities and challenges for scaling nature-based solutions. Bierbaum, professor at University of Maryland and University of Michigan, and Florizone, president at International Institute for Sustainable Development, moderated Room 15 focused on Sustainable Development Goal number 15—on life on land—during the 2021 17 Rooms flagship process.

17 Rooms” is a podcast about actions, insights, and community for the Sustainable Development Goals and the people driving them. The podcast is co-hosted by John McArthur—senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at The Brookings Institution, and Zia Khan—senior vice president for innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation.

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Mirage

November 23, 2021
At the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow in November, direct and unprecedented engagement between indigenous peoples, local communities and governments helped unlock sustainable and resilient ways to achieve the Paris Agreement commitments and reverse biodiversity decline. For the first time in the history of the UNFCCC, twenty-eight indigenous peoples were nominated from each of the seven UN indigenous socio-cultural regions, to engage directly as knowledge holders and share experiences as indigenous experts with governments.

Indigenous peoples and local communities have knowledge and values oriented towards nature and amassed through generations. Indigenous peoples steward over 80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity.

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PHYS.ORG

May 4, 2021
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) could support transformative change in environmental sustainability—to address major societal challenges, including the climate crisis—according to a new paper from Oxford researchers.

But, the team warns, there must be a move away from the narrow framing of what nature can 'do' for society to an integrated approach, where solutions are understood as place-based, activated by people in partnership with nature.

This issue has real world implications for the way nature becomes an integrated part of the response to environmental challenges. For example, positioning the action of tree planting as simply a way to mitigate climate change, rather than a dynamic relationship between people and nature, is over simplistic. This is not conducive to transformative change and perpetuates a separation between people and nature.

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Brookings - OpEd

January 7, 2021
With COVID-19 vaccinations underway in some countries and efforts to expand access still ongoing, world leaders will soon shift their attention from crisis response to pandemic recovery. Governments have already committed $12 trillion to the COVID-19 response, and there will be strong pressure to keep investing in a return to the pre-pandemic “normal.” But that would be a mistake.

Putting aside budget constraints, we have just seen that the pre-pandemic normal had dire implications for the world. Our strained interactions with the environment helped introduce the coronavirus to humans, our hyperconnected global economy allowed it to spread like wildfire, and its especially deadly effects on the most vulnerable populations have highlighted the consequences of deep-seated social and economic inequalities within and between countries.

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Campaign for Nature

November 11, 2020
This week, leaders of 450 public development banks representing 10% of total global investment will gather to discuss the role public finance can play in driving sustainable development that benefits people and the planet. 

The Finance in Common Summit will underscore the role nature-positive public finance can play in establishing a healthy environment, critical to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Climate Agreement targets and the new, ambitious framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Central to this framework is a target to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. 

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Business Green

August 28, 2020
Investors and businesses seeking guidance on how to harness nature based solutions to boost profits and meet sustainability objectives can draw on a new report, titled Nature based solutions to the climate crisis, published yesterday by the Manchester-based Ignition project.

The report analyses a range of nature-based solutions to construction and urban planning challenges: street trees, green roofs and walls, urban parks and green spaces, and sustainable drainage systems.

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Reuters

July 14, 2020
South Korea outlined a plan on Tuesday to spend 114.1 trillion won (£75.38 billion) on a “New Deal” to create jobs and help the economy recover from the coronavirus fallout, anchored in part by “green” investment in electric vehicles and hydrogen cars.

The six-year plan will build digital infrastructure and a stronger safety net for job seekers, but its “Green New Deal” aspects have drawn attention as they aim to cut heavy reliance on fossil fuels in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

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World Economic Forum

July 14, 2020
The Future of Nature and Business, the second of three reports in the World Economic Forum’s New Nature Economy series, provides the practical insights needed to take leadership in shifting towards a much needed nature-positive economy.

As the world prepares to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting crisis, we are presented with an unprecedented clarion call, and opportunity, to change the way we eat, live, grow, build and power our lives to achieve a carbon-neutral, ‘nature-positive’ economy and halt biodiversity loss by 2030. Business as usual is no longer an option.

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UN News

February 24, 2020
Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told negotiators on Monday that as agriculture and food systems are “at the heart of the concept of sustainable development”, they are central to deliberations regarding the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework, which is expected to be adopted at the UN Biodiversity Conference in October.

“Biodiversity is fundamental for ecosystems, for human beings, and is the basis of food diversity," said Mr. Qu, opening the second meeting of the Open-ended Working Group established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which FAO is hosting. 

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Eco-Business

January 24, 2020
Cosmetics firms can look at reducing palm oil use, while wineries can cut chemicals to help animal pollinators. Companies should examine ways to make production chains more friendly to biodiversity, said eminent scientist Sandra Diaz.

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Today

January 21, 2020
The world is using up more than 100 billion tonnes of natural resources per year for the first time ever while global recycling of raw materials has fallen, according to a report released Tuesday (Jan 21).

The share of minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass feeding into the global economy that is reused declined in two years from an already paltry 9.1 per cent to 8.6 today, the Circularity Gap Report 2020 found.

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The Hill

January 14, 2020
In Portugal’s Greater Côa Valley, a transformation is underway. Once degraded and overgrown, thousands of hectares of this remote ecosystem are being restored and rewilded. Plans are afoot to reintroduce wild horses, roe deer and Iberian ibex. This restoration will improve the connection between the Malcata mountain range and the Douro Valley. It is an all-round win for Portuguese wildlife.

But if this grand vision is to be sustainable, it needs to be profitable. The valley has suffered one of the highest rates of land abandonment in Europe, which has contributed to the decline of the landscape — the area became overgrown in the absence of grazing farm animals, and that in turn has harmed biodiversity and increased the risk of wildfire.

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UN News

December 1, 2019
The UN Secretary-General has outlined the “increased ambition and commitment” that the world needs from governments during the coming days of the COP25 UN climate change conference which opens in Madrid on Monday, calling for “accountability, responsibility and leadership” to end the global climate crisis.

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edie

November 20, 2019
Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri has called on business leaders to sign up to a Carbon Neutral Challenge that sees businesses deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions across their entire value chain in order to achieve net-zero emissions.

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