$8:1 Trillion Required Tackle Biodiversity, Land and Degradation Crises By 2050 – Report
BY GLORIA USMAN, ABUJA – In order to tackle climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises the world is faced with, about US $8.1 trillion is required to achieve this, said the State of Finance for Nature report released on Tuesday.
It also states that an annual investment of 536 billion dollars annually is required between now and 2050 to help cover a 4.1 trillion dollars financing gap that could derail the realisation of a low-carbon and sustainable future.
According to the State of Finance for Nature report, to successfully tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises, increasing investments in habitat protection is key to hastening green growth and averting the spread of disease-causing pathogens.
The report finds that annual investments in nature-based solutions will have to triple by 2030 and increase four-fold by 2050 from the current investments into nature-based solutions of USD 133 billion (using 2018 as base year).
The report produced by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in collaboration with Vivid Economics therefore urges Governments, financial institutions and businesses to overcome this investment gap by placing nature at the heart of economic decision-making in the future.
It stressed the need to rapidly accelerate capital flows to nature-based solutions by making nature central to public and private sector decision-making related to societal challenges, including tackling the climate and biodiversity crises.
According to the report; “Structural transformations are needed to close the USD 4.1 trillion finance gap between now and 2050, by building back more sustainably in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also by repurposing harmful agricultural and fossil fuel subsidies and creating other economic and regulatory incentives.
“It states that investing in nature supports human, animal and planetary health, improves quality of life, and creates jobs”.
However, nature currently accounts for 2.5% of projected economic stimulus spending in the wake of COVID-19, adding that private capital will also have to be scaled up dramatically to close the investment gap.
It further states; “Developing and scaling up revenue flows from ecosystem services and using blended finance models as a means to crowd in private capital are among the suite of solutions needed to make this happen, which also requires risk-sharing from private sector entities”.
UNEP Executive Director, Inger Andersen, said, “Biodiversity loss is already costing the global economy 10 percent of its output each year. If we do not sufficiently finance nature-based solutions, we will impact the capacities of countries to make progress on other vital areas such as education, health and employment. If we do not save nature now, we will not be able to achieve sustainable development”.
