Climate change: aid to natural ecosystems must grow to US$384 billion by 2025 to limit warming, biodiversity loss, UN urges
- Annual investments in ‘nature-based solutions’ must expand 2.5 times by 2025 and more than quadruple by 2050, according to a UN report
- Total investment of $11 trillion is ‘relatively small’ given that around half of world GDP is dependent on nature and its services, UN Environment Programme says
The world needs to quickly pour more money into protecting and restoring natural ecosystems so that they can help humanity limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a report by the United Nations on Thursday.
Financial flows to so-called nature-based solutions must grow nearly 2.5 times to US$384 billion in 2025 from US$154 billion per year now, according to the State of Finance for Nature report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Economics of Land Degradation initiative.
Annual investments in such solutions need to reach US$484 billion in 2030 and US$674 billion in 2050 – more than four times the current level. However, the UNEP argues, such investments will pay off by addressing social, economic and biodiversity challenges as well as helping with climate change.
The amount looks like a “very steep challenge” but is actually a relatively small investment given that around half of the global gross domestic product of around US$44 trillion “depends on healthy and well-functioning ecosystems”, Ivo Mulder, head of UNEP’s climate finance unit, said at a media briefing.
“If we put nature really at the heart of some of the defining societal challenges, and knowing that about 50 per cent of global GDP is dependent on healthy and well-functioning ecosystems, it shouldn’t be too hard of a stretch, even if we are living through multiple crises,” said Mulder, citing the war in Ukraine and its impact in energy and food prices.