Double financing for natural ecosystems by 2025 to deal with climate, biodiversity crises: UN report

Double financing for natural ecosystems by 2025 to deal with climate, biodiversity crises: UN report

Subject: Environment

Context-

• Financing for nature-based solutions (NbS) needs to be doubled to deal with multiple global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, according to a new United Nations (UN) report.

What are Nature-based Solutions (NbS)-

• Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems, that address societal challenges such as climate change, human health, food and water security, and disaster risk reduction effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.
  • e.g. Planting trees that thrive in coastal areas – known as mangroves — reduces the impact of storms on human lives and economic assets, and provides a habitat for fish, birds and other plants supporting biodiversity.

Salient features of NbS-

• Embrace nature conservation norms and principles;
• can be implemented alone or in an integrated manner with other solutions to societal challenges (e.g. technological and engineering solutions);
• are determined by site-specific natural and cultural contexts that include traditional, local and scientific knowledge;
• produce societal benefits in a fair and equitable way, in a manner that promotes transparency and broad participation;
• maintain biological and cultural diversity and the ability of ecosystems to evolve over time;
• are applied at a landscape scale;
• recognise and address the trade-offs between the production of a few immediate economic benefits for development, and future options for the production of the full range of ecosystems services; and
• are an integral part of the overall design of policies, and measures or actions, to address a specific challenge.

Do nature-based solutions help fight climate change?

• World Bank estimates suggest that nature-based solutions can provide 37% of the mitigation needed until 2030 to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement.
• Examples include-
  • Restoring native forests at the margins of the river to avoid landslides can also act as a carbon sink.
  • Climate-smart agriculture enables farmers to retain more carbon in their fields as they produce crops.
  • USD 57 billion in flooding damages averted by mangroves in China, India, Mexico, US and Vietnam each year.

Types of NbS:

• Minimal Intervention in Ecosystems:
  • It consists of no or minimal intervention in ecosystems,
  • Examples include the protection of mangroves in coastal areas to limit risks associated with extreme weather conditions and provide benefits and opportunities to local populations.
• Some Interventions in Ecosystems and Landscapes:
  • It corresponds to management approaches that develop sustainable and multifunctional ecosystems and landscapes (extensively or intensively managed).
  • This type of NBS is strongly connected to concepts like natural systems agriculture, agro-ecology, and evolutionary-orientated forestry.
• Managing Ecosystems in Extensive Ways:
  • It consists of managing ecosystems in very extensive ways or even creating new ecosystems (e.g., artificial ecosystems with new assemblages of organisms for green roofs and walls to mitigate city warming and clean polluted air).
  • It is linked to concepts like green and blue infrastructures and objectives like restoration of heavily degraded or polluted areas and greening cities.

Recognition:

• United Nations:
  • The UN promoted NBS as the theme for World Water Day 2018 as “Nature for Water”.
  • The UN World Water Development Report was titled “Nature-based Solutions for Water”.
  • The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit highlighted Nature-based solutions as an effective method to combat climate change.
  • A Nature Based Solution Coalition was created, including dozens of countries, led by China and New Zealand.
• European Union:
  • Since 2016, the EU has supported a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform (Think Nature) to promote the co-design, testing, and deployment of improved and innovative NBS in an integrated way.
• India:
  • India launched its first National Coalition platform for Urban nature-based solutions (NbS) under the Cities4Forests
  • Cities4Forests: It works closely with cities around the world to connect with forests, emphasises the importance of wetlands and their multiple benefits to help combat climate change and protect biodiversity in cities.