Bloomberg

September 28, 2022
Almost $1.9 trillion. That’s the amount Moody’s Investors Service says is at stake as biodiversity loss intensifies nature-related risks.

With financial markets currently under siege, concerns about biodiversity probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind for panicked investors. But the long-term ramifications of a depleted natural world are potentially devastating.

High-risk sectors such as coal and metals mining, as well as oil and gas exploration and production, will likely face greater regulatory and investor scrutiny as every day passes. Companies that lack credible management strategies in this arena face the prospect of not only reputational damage, but also serious financial repercussions, Moody’s wrote in a 14-page report.

“Risks such as ecosystem health, biodiversity loss and natural resource management are rising up the policy and investor agenda,” said Rahul Ghosh, managing director of environmental, social and governance issues at Moody’s.

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The Straits Times

September 29, 2021
Nature is not, and cannot be, a passive victim of economic development, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said on Wednesday (Sept 29).

Not only does nature help make city life more liveable, it can also contribute to mankind's fight against climate change, he said, urging delegates gathered at the Ecosperity Week sustainability conference to take a fresh perspective on the natural environment.

The three-day conference is convened by Singapore's Temasek investment company for policymakers, investors, non-government groups and businesses, and is being held in a hybrid format with some attendees gathered at Marina Bay Sands. Wednesday marks the second day of the conference.

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Campaign For Nature

August 24, 2021

Africa’s prosperity depends on preserving its vast natural wealth, yet the continent’s natural capital stocks are dwindling rapidly, concludes a new report released today by the German government.  

The report, one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of the strong links between Africa’s development and nature protection, is the latest study to lay out evidence that economic recovery and nature protection are closely intertwined. It emphasizes that investing in nature is a critical development strategy, with benefits that are 8-9 times the costs.

Written by a team of researchers from Germany, Morocco, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Côte d’Ivoire, the study shows that the continent’s most important economic sectors--including agriculture, fishing, tourism and hydropower--will thrive if nature is protected. The study also points to the critical role nature plays in building resilience against the impacts of climate change, including natural hazards and disasters.   

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Landscape News

August 19, 2021
Public development banks (PBDs) have a vital role to play in promoting greater investment in biodiversity and nature-based solutions in the countries where they lend, according to a new report on biodiversity finance produced ahead of the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the U.N. Convention on Biodiversity (CBD).

Its findings and recommendations are based on research carried out by a team headed by Leon Bennun, chief scientist at The Biodiversity Consultancy and Renaud Lapeyre, an independent expert with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for Nature France, and funded by the WWF.

The main aim, says Lapeyre, is to support and accompany these banks and their partners in transforming their models toward contributing to nature-positive finance and reducing investments that harm biodiversity.

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The Print

July 26, 2021
Climate action failure, biodiversity loss and infectious diseases counted as the top three risks in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report. It is imperative that leaders and citizens alike adopt a systems view for the economic and societal transformation needed today so we build the world we want to inhabit in 2030.

In 2015, world leaders came together for an ambitious commitment on fighting climate change to keep the world on a 1.5C pathway. In addition to governments that committed to the Paris Agreement, businesses aligned their plans and commitments to this vision. Companies with a combined revenue of over $11.4 trillion (equivalent to more than half of US GDP), are now pursuing net zero emissions by the end of the century, majority by 2050.

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The Guardian

July 15, 2021
Trillions of dollars poured into rescuing economies around the world from the Covid-19 crisis have been spent in ways that worsen the climate crisis and harm nature because governments have failed to fulfil promises of a “green recovery” from the pandemic.

Only about a tenth of the $17tn in bailouts provided by governments since the start of the pandemic was spent on activities that reduced greenhouse gas emissions or restored the natural world, according to analysis from Vivid Economics, published on Thursday.

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World Bank Blog

July 12, 2021
The rollout of vaccines globally, particularly as this effort picks up momentum, is spreading hope that countries will soon have control over the devastating health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries still, though, have a long path to travel for economic recovery. The pandemic has led to a deep global recession in which much economic activity has declined, including in the hard-hit tourism sector. In tourism-dependent economies in Africa and the Caribbean, for example, GDP is projected to shrink by 12 percent.

The economic toll is occurring at a time when biodiversity is imperiled, globally. The 2020 Living Planet Index reported a 68 percent average decline in birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970; one-third of the world’s terrestrial, and two-thirds of its marine, protected areas are under threat from human impact. Protected areas are not only key to any global effort to conserve biodiversity, they are also crucial to address climate change and achieve sustainable development goals. Currently, 17 percent of land and 8 percent of the marine environment, world over, is protected. The proposed target for 2030 – to be negotiated at the CBD COP-15 in Kunming, China in the coming months -- is to expand this coverage to at least 30 percent, part of an effort to address the threat to biodiversity.

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Reuters

The global economy faces annual losses of $2.7 trillion by 2030 if ecological tipping points are reached and countries fail to invest more in protecting and restoring nature, the World Bank said on Thursday, calling for a greener COVID-19 recovery.

In its first “Economic Case for Nature” report, the bank looked at how many economies rely on biodiversity and how they would cope if certain services provided by nature collapsed. It found that sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would be worst hit.

The study identified key “ecosystem services” that it said were close to tipping points, including wild pollinators and provision of food from marine fisheries and timber from native forests.

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Campaign For Nature

July 1, 2021
A  World Bank report released today argues that policies safeguarding nature deliver a long list of valuable benefits, including pollination, food provision and timber from native forests, that deliver a win-win for biodiversity and economies. The Economic Case for Nature finds that if the world fails to protect nature, we could lose $2.7 trillion in global GDP annually, with countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia particularly hard hit.  

Building off recent reports laying out the economic benefits of protecting nature and following a major proclamation by G7 nations that protecting nature is an urgent priority, the report uses a first-of-its-kind analysis to reveal the extent to which valuing and protecting nature is a key development issue.

It makes the case that nature-smart policies that preserve ecosystem service benefits would increase global GDP by $50-150 billion compared to business as usual and reduce the risk of ecosystem collapse and an associated potential reduction in GDP of 2.3%. Other reports have highlighted additional benefits of protecting nature, including the expansion of nature-based tourism, which is an important source of economic growth in many developing countries. 

The report notes that ambitious targets, like the global effort to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, are achievable and play a crucial role in unlocking these benefits.  

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The New York Times

April 7, 2021
How does a country deal with climate disasters when it’s drowning in debt? Not very well, it turns out. Especially not when a pandemic clobbers its economy.

Take Belize, Fiji and Mozambique. Vastly different countries, they are among dozens of nations at the crossroads of two mounting global crises that are drawing the attention of international financial institutions: climate change and debt.

They owe staggering amounts of money to various foreign lenders. They face staggering climate risks, too. And now, with the coronavirus pandemic pummeling their economies, there is a growing recognition that their debt obligations stand in the way of meeting the immediate needs of their people — not to mention the investments required to protect them from climate disasters.

The combination of debt, climate change and environmental degradation “represents a systemic risk to the global economy that may trigger a cycle that depresses revenues, increases spending and exacerbates climate and nature vulnerabilities,” according to a new assessment by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others, which was seen by The Times. It comes after months of pressure from academics and advocates for lenders to address this problem.

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The Washington Post - OpEd

March 31, 2021
The covid-19 pandemic has pummeled the globe, harming the health of the planet and its peoples. In Latin America, the economic blows have fallen with particular force.

Across the region, resources that might once have been used to protect forests — which are among Latin America’s biggest contributions to fighting climate change — have been channeled into shoring up the economy and battling the disease.

This means that Indigenous communities in these forests often are confronting not only the deadly covid-19 virus, but an unprecedented invasion of their ancestral territories, as illegal loggers, drug lords, ranchers, miners and many other groups take advantage of the cover of the pandemic.

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Bloomberg Green

March 21, 2021
Global businesses sourcing commodities such as cattle, soybeans or rubber stand to lose some $53 billion due to deforestation unless they take action.

In a survey of more than 500 global businesses, climate-disclosure platform CDP identified risks such as extreme weather, changes in consumer preferences, as well as market and reputational impacts from commodity-related forest loss. It would cost $6.6 billion in the coming years to address those risks, the London-based nonprofit said in a report Monday.

“The destruction of the world’s vital forests poses huge risks to the climate, nature, the economy, and also increases the risk of future pandemics,” Sareh Forouzesh, CDP’s associate director of forests, said in a statement. “There is a solid business case for companies sourcing commodities sustainably and taking steps to protect forests.”

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Campaign For Nature

March 22, 2021

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a new report that--for the first time--provides conclusive evidence that investments in renewable energy and biodiversity conservation do more to boost a country’s GDP than investments in fossil fuels and activities that destroy ecosystems. The findings laid out in the IMF Working Paper, Building Back Better: How Big Are Green Spending Multipliers?, are based on a new international dataset that is the first to gather and compare the impacts on GDP of spending on green and non-eco-friendly energy and land use.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation

March 11, 2021
Conservationists and environment officials hope new U.N. standards to measure the value of nature can help governments slow the rapid decline of plant and animal species worldwide.

Adopted this week by the U.N. Statistical Commission, the accounting system comes as a global movement gathers pace to protect the natural world by valuing the contributions forests, wetlands and other ecosystems make to economies and societies.

The benefits of preserving nature, such as reducing carbon emissions, producing water and boosting resilience to extreme weather, exceed the value of exploiting it, according to a study published this week in the Nature Sustainability journal.

If Nepal's Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park were turned from forest into farmland, for instance, instead of boosting the economy, it would create an $11-million annual deficit by cutting carbon storage 60% and water quality 88%, researchers estimated.

So how can the monetary value of nature be measured, and what does it mean for global efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss?

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International Institute for Sustainable Development

March 8, 2021
The UK Government has published an independent review that provides a global assessment of the economic benefits of biodiversity and the costs of biodiversity loss, and recommends actions to simultaneously enhance biodiversity and deliver economic prosperity.

In 2019, the UK Government commissioned Cambridge University economist Partha Dasgupta to provide a global review on the economics of biodiversity. Following the publication of an interim report in April 2020, the final publication titled, ‘The Economics of Biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review,’ was issued ahead of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The publication’s formal launch, hosted by the Royal Society, took place on 2 February 2021.   

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