Over 100 experts oppose ‘Nature Positive Fund’ in open letter to UN before COP15

Subject :Environment

Context-

A hundred and nineteen experts from academia and civil society have called on the United Nations (UN), World Economic Forum (WEF), European Commission (EC) and World Wide Fund for Nature to reject the ‘Nature Positive Fund’ at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada

What is ‘Nature positive’-

Nature-positive is the term used to describe a world where nature – species and ecosystems – is being restored and is regenerating rather than declining.
A nature-positive economy is one in which businesses, governments and others take action at scale to minimise and remove the drivers and pressures fuelling the degradation of nature, to actively improve the state of nature itself and to boost nature’s contribution to society.
Under the UN Convention on Biodiversity governments from around the world are negotiating a new Global Goal for Nature which is set to include the target that the world should be nature-positive by 2030 in order that nature may fully recover by 2050.
A fund is proposed for this purpose, known as ‘Nature positive fund’.

Concerns highlighted are-

Financialization of nature’s destruction, via a monetary valuation of ecosystems, biodiversity offsetting and diverting the conversation away from the need to curb biodiversity destruction and towards ‘sustainable’ finance regulation.
Criticism against the call for “recognize the value of nature”, “start valuing nature in economic transactions,” “complementary measures of economic progress, including natural capital” and references to the Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity (TEEB).
Most valuation models only valued a few main ecological functions and ignored the rest as a result, the monetary values being produced do not represent the value of nature’s ecological functions.
Offsetting has also led to land-grabbing of indigenous land in poor countries, causing human rights abuses, as a form of green neo-colonialism.
Idea of nature positive fund empowers private finance and financial markets that will downplay the power of governments to set up appropriate regulations.

What is The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)?

From 2007 to 2011,Pavan Sukhdev led a research called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).
It is a global campaign to raise awareness of the global economic advantages of biodiversity.
Its goal is to emphasise the rising cost of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, as well as to bring together experts from science, economics, and policy to allow meaningful solutions.
Estimates show that biodiversity and environmental loss would cost 18 percent of global economic output by 2050.
The World Bank, in particular, has recently spearheaded efforts to reflect the cost of biodiversity loss and climate change in national accounts.
Objective
- Highlight the rising costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, as well as bring together experts from science, economics, and policy to enable practical actions.
TEEB – Aims
- To assess, communicate, and mainstream the urgency of actions through five deliverables:
- Science and economic foundations, policy costs, and costs of inaction
- Policy options for national and international decision-makers
- Decision-making assistance for local administrators
- Business Risks, opportunities and metrics
- Citizen and consumer ownership

TEEB and India-

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has launched the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity TEEB-India Initiative (TII) to highlight the economic consequences of biological diversity loss and the resulting decline in ecosystem services.
The Initiative concentrated its efforts on three habitats: forests, inland wetlands, and coastal and marine ecosystems.
TII has been implemented as a technical collaboration with GIZ under the Indo-German Biodiversity Programme.
The pilot project results will be incorporated into the sectoral synthesis for the three ecosystems.
It was unveiled during the Brazil-India-Germany TEEB Dialogue, which India hosted in September 2015.

The entire research result was issued at the 21st session of the UNFCCC CoP, which was held in Paris in November-December 2015.