Politico — Op Ed

September 21, 2022
Hansjörg Wyss is a Swiss businessman and philanthropist, and the co-owner of Chelsea FC.

Solving the crisis facing nature is daunting. Over the next few months, we will see whether governments are truly up to the task.

I, for one, am optimistic that we will meet the challenge, but leaders must actually commit to accelerating the pace of conservation this year and invest significant and meaningful public resources. Promises alone can’t save nature — it’s time for governments to take action.

Inspired by the wonders of nature — and motivated by the fear of losing the wild places I love — I’ve pledged a significant portion of my fortune to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.

This commitment is a promise to future generations that I’m going to do everything I can to leave them a world that’s as alive and glorious as the one I was born into.

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UN Environmental Programme

September 7, 2022
The extent to which our global economy and financial system can flourish is fundamentally underpinned by the state of nature. However, our natural world continues to be rapidly and dangerously eroded. WWF and 90 civil society partners have urged central banks and financial supervisors to manage climate and biodiversity related financial risks as part of their primary mandates. Their call for action emphasizes how losses to nature and biodiversity pose material risks to the financial systemand includes demands for consistent, market-wide risk identification and disclosure and also for promoting the enabling environment for new financial opportunities. Jessica Smith from UNEP FI and Thomas Viegas from the Bank of England (Manager, Market Intelligence and Analysis) explain why they welcome this development and why nature has reached a tipping point where it’s no longer about ‘if’ we act to mitigate nature-risk but ‘how’ and ‘where’.

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Fast Company

August 8, 2022
Navigating the investment landscape is increasingly complex. Supply chain issues, soaring inflation, rising energy prices, spiraling cost of raw materials—the list goes on.

Increasingly, “alarming” levels of global biodiversity loss—or, in investment-speak, the permanent destruction of natural capital—must also be taken into account. In fact, the situation has reached a crisis point where investors are now recognizing the direct line of risk between their portfolios and the natural resources they depend on.

All is not lost. As investors finally start to quantify the risk of global biodiversity loss in terms of dollars, it could spark the level of change that has been so urgently needed for so long. Indeed, investment is now being billed as a key area of debate at the upcoming UN COP-15 summit on biodiversity.

Alongside the significant economic opportunity there is of course also a climate imperative on financial companies to halt the ecological destruction of the Earth. Thankfully, these companies are starting to take notice and establish roots in the movement to reverse biodiversity loss.

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Campaign For Nature

July 21, 2022
At the Africa Nature Finance Forum, held yesterday on the sidelines of the inaugural African Protected Areas Congress (APAC) 2022, government leaders and experts from across Africa called for an urgent increase in financing to protect the world’s biodiversity.

“By 2100, we may lose half of our bird and animal species, 20-30% of the productivity of African lakes and significant numbers of our plant species,” said Hon. Lee White, Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Gabon. “In this context, without strong action, we will create instability and security issues all over the African continent. One of the key elements is the mobilization of predictable and sustainable resources. This is why we need to think about innovative and sustainable finance for nature.” 

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Business Green

June 1, 2022
The UK government is set to pledge £330m to help developing countries tackle environmental breakdown, conserve nature and deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on the first day of a major UN environmental summit kicking off tomorrow in Stockholm.

The Stockholm+50 conference has been organised to mark 50 years since the historic United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, and is expected to see rafts of global politicians, CEOs and civil society leaders in attendance, alongside the launch of a number of fresh environmental commitments.

The £330m set to be officially announced by the UK government tomorrow is earmarked for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UN mechanism financing designed to help developing countries meet global nature commitments, in a move aimed at driving finance towards a "nature positive future".

International Environment Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith said scaling finance for nature protection was an economic imperative that would require governments and private actors to pool resources.

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UK.Gov

June 1, 2022
Action to drive the recovery of the global economy and bolster food security worldwide by protecting and restoring nature will be set out today by government ministers, CEOs and civil society leaders at a major multinational summit being held today (Wednesday 1 June).

‘Financing the Transition to a Nature Positive Future’ will be held in association with Stockholm +50, a major environmental meeting led by the United Nations between 2-3 June. The event is being convened by the UK Government and supported by the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature (LPN).

Over half of GDP - $44 trillion - relies on the services that nature provides or natural capital - from the bees that pollinate the plants we eat, to the trees that purify our air and the forests and oceans that absorb carbon emissions. However, we are spending our natural capital much faster than it is being replenished.

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Reuters

May 17, 2022
We need tree-planting, we need renewables, and we need fossil-free fuels. But in our efforts to tackle the climate emergency, are we forgetting the soil beneath our feet?

Many organisations are warning that the overlapping crises of climate, biodiversity and land degradation must be tackled together – not sequentially – if planet Earth is to continue to support us.

The Global Land Outlook report published last month by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), describes land as the “operative link between biodiversity loss and climate change”.

Underlining that, parties to the Convention meeting in Cote d’Ivoire from May 9-20 for the first of the year’s three big UN summits, heard French President Emmanuel Macron in a video message call for all public policies to incorporate the three interlinked conventions on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification, that grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

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Mail & Guardian

April 4, 2022
Can humanity curb spending that harms the world’s biodiversity and instead focus funding on protecting it? That question is at the heart of negotiations in Geneva, which will set the stage for a crucial United Nations COP15 biodiversity summit in China later this year. 

Almost 200 countries are to adopt a global framework to safeguard nature by mid-century from the destruction wrought by humanity, with a key milestone of 30% protected by 2030.

These ambitions will only be met with a new approach to biodiversity funding and a rethink of the huge sums spent on subsidies harmful to nature such as fossil fuels, agriculture and fishing, according to observers. This can often result in environmental destruction and encourage unsustainable levels of production and consumption.

The exact figure that the world spends on these harmful subsidies is debated, although the group Business for Nature estimates that it could be as much as $1.8-trillion every year, or 2% of global GDP. 

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IFLR

February 21, 2022
While climate change concerns have so far dominated ESG thinking, awareness of nature risk is catching up fast and already being integrated into sustainability frameworks, according to sources. 

The biodiversity-related principal adverse indicators in the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, the planned update to the EU Taxonomy to incorporate biodiversity risk, the Network for Greening the Financial System's own biodiversity study group, along with the meteoric rise of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), represent well the momentum building behind regulatory attempts to transform nature risk awareness into concrete impact in financial markets. 

The World Economic Forum estimates that more than half of the world’s economic output ($44 trillion) is at least moderately or highly dependent on nature, meaning that if natural systems collapse, so will the world’s economic and financial systems. 

Due to the sheer scale of the risk – together with scientific studies that show the world has already entered the sixth mass extinction phase – sources say that considerations around nature or biodiversity risk, which have traditionally been excluded from financial decision making, can no longer be relegated to the margins. 

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Diálogo China

January 25, 2022
During the first part of the COP15 Biodiversity Conference, held virtually in October 2021, Chinese president Xi Jinping launched a 1.5 billion yuan (US$233 million) fund for the protection of fauna and flora in developing countries.

With the second part of the convention due to take place in April this year, there are high expectations that the Kunming Fund, named after COP15’s host city in Yunnan province, southern China, could be a new source of green finance for Latin America, a region that is home to 40% of the world’s biodiversity.

The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) was the first organisation to announce a donation to the fund. Other NGOs have followed suit. Maggie Ma, a spokesperson for the foundation, told Diálogo Chino that they are still waiting for information from the Chinese government on how to conclude their transfer of 1 million yuan ($158,000) but that they believe funds can be leveraged for the more sustainable use of tropical forests.

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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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PR Newswire

December 6, 2021
The Bezos Earth Fund announced it awarded 44 grants totaling $443 million to organizations focused on climate justice, nature conservation and restoration, and tracking critical climate goals. The grants include $130 million to advance the Justice40 initiative in the U.S.; $261 million to further the 30x30 initiative to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, with a focus on the Congo Basin and Tropical Andes; and $51 million to support land restoration in the U.S. and Africa. These grants are part of the Bezos Earth Fund's $10 billion commitment to fight climate change, protect and restore nature, and advance environmental justice and economic opportunity.

"The goal of the Bezos Earth Fund is to support change agents who are seizing the challenges that this decisive decade presents," said Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. "Through these grants, we are advancing climate justice and the protection of nature, two areas that demand stronger action."

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Ford Foundation

November 1, 2021
The UK, Norway, Germany, the US, and the Netherlands, in partnership with 17 funders, pledged today to invest US$1.7 billion to help Indigenous and local communities protect the biodiverse tropical forests that are vital to protecting the planet from climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risk, according to an announcement made today at a high-level World Leaders Summit at COP26.

“We are demonstrating our commitment today by announcing an initial, collective pledge of $1.7 billion of financing, from 2021 to 2025, to support the advancement of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ forest tenure rights and greater recognition and rewards for their role as guardians of forests and nature,” says a statement released today by the donors. “We call on other donors to significantly increase their support to this important agenda.”

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Bloomberg

November 1, 2021
One hundred countries, representing 85% of the world’s forests, have given themselves nine years to halt and reverse deforestation, in a major new commitment at global climate change talks on Tuesday.

Brazil, Russia, Canada, Colombia and Indonesia will be among the nations committing to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 at the third day of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in an initiative spearheaded by the conference host, the U.K.

The inclusion of Brazil, home to the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is crucial to the initiative and comes amid a turnaround in the country’s ambitions to reduce emissions and tackle deforestation. Across the world as a whole, an area of forest the size of 27 soccer pitches is lost every minute, according to the U.K.

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The Guardian

September 29, 2021
When their time comes, many of the richest people on Earth have committed to giving away the bulk of their fortunes. Education, poverty and the arts have traditionally benefited from philanthropy, attracting billions for important causes. But increasingly, nature and the climate crisis have become a focus of giving.

Last week, a group of nine philanthropic foundations made the largest ever donation to nature conservation, pledging $5bn to finance the protection of 30% of land and sea by the end of the decade. Swiss businessman Hansjörg Wyss, also a major donor to the US Democratic party, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were among the billionaires behind the Protecting our Planet challenge. In effect, the money covers the estimated cost of the 30% goal for this decade, one of the 21 targets included in the draft Paris-style UN agreement for nature currently being negotiated. It also includes plans to eliminate plastics pollution and reduce pesticide use to slow species extinctions.

“We can solve the crisis facing nature,” Wyss said at the launch. “But it’s going to take the wealthiest nations and the wealthiest individuals committing to reinvest our enormous bounties here on Earth, safeguarding nature and protecting our lands, waters and wildlife.”

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