Starting gun fired on global hunt for hundreds of billions to fund nature protection
BARCELONA — Protecting the planet’s plants, animals and ecosystems, and repairing the damage done to them by humans will take about $700 billion a year in extra funding over the next decade, requiring a huge boost in investment by governments and business, officials said on Monday.
The call came as Britain and Canada joined a coalition of countries that have promised to protect 30% of their land and seas by 2030 to stem “catastrophic” biodiversity loss.
The two nations also signed up to a separate pledge, uniting 70 countries and the European Union (EU), to reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030 through a green recovery from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, tackling pollution and deforestation, and boosting financing to safeguard the planet, among other commitments.
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told an online U.N. financing forum the success of a new global plan for biodiversity, due to be agreed at a summit in China next May, would rely on raising additional resources.
It would also require the reduction or redirection of $500 billion per year that today causes harm to nature, she noted. That includes incentives and subsidies that support intensive agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Monday’s forum yielded few concrete pledges of new money.
Germany said it would increase its 500-million euro ($583 million) annual investment in protecting biodiversity in low- and middle-income countries, without specifying by how much.
It will also partner with businesses, foundations and other governments on a “Legacy Landscapes Fund” for biodiversity work in poorer nations. Through next year, it has budgeted about 115 million euros for the fund, and called on others to join.
Britain said it would increase its spending on forest protection and other nature-based solutions as part of the £11.6 billion ($14.9 billion) in international climate finance it has promised to provide from 2021-2025.
British officials said they would also make the issue a priority when they host the 2021 UN climate summit.
“There is no pathway to net-zero emissions without ramping up our efforts to protect and restore nature on an unprecedented scale,” Zac Goldsmith, Britain’s minister of state for Pacific and the environment, told the forum.
“Nature-based solutions could provide around a third of the costeffective solutions we need by 2030, and yet they attract just 3% of global climate investment,” he noted.
Several US-based philanthropic foundations also indicated they would put more financial muscle behind nature-protection efforts, but did not announce specific amounts of new money.
And major companies, including Unilever, BNP Paribas and investment management firm Mirova, reiterated commitments to invest their own money or channel clients’ assets into projects to restore land and coral reefs and preserve wildlife.
On Friday, luxury brand Cartier joined The Lion’s Share Fund, which aims to raise more than $100 million per year by 2025 to halt biodiversity loss and protect habitats.
The fund does that by asking brands to contribute 0.5% of their media spend on each advertisement featuring an animal.
Launched in 2018, the UN-led fund has helped a national reserve in Mozambique eliminate elephant poaching by improving radio systems for law enforcement officers.