Humans are impacting nature at an unprecedented rate.
The global economy is built on nature.
Over half of the world’s GDP, the equivalent of $58 trillion per annum is estimated to be moderately or highly dependent on nature.
But nature is under threat.
The growth we have experienced over the last 50 years has come at a significant cost to the natural systems that underpin life on earth.
According to the World Economic Forum, humanity has already caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of all plants. Human activities have already severely altered 75% of land and 66% of marine environments and more than 85% of wetlands have also been lost. Ecosystems have declined in size and condition by 47% globally compared to estimated baselines.
The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years – and it is accelerating. Intergovernmental science policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services estimates that 1 million plant and animal species are currently threatened with extinction, many within the next decade.
The world is starting to take action but it’s not fast enough, or at a large enough scale.
In 2022, governments from around the world came together as part of COP15 to agree on a set of goals to guide global action to halt and reverse that loss.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted (sometimes referred to as the ‘Paris agreement for nature’) with restoration and conservation targets set to be achieved by 2050. 196 national governments committed to investing $200 billion per year by 2030, to preserve and restore biodiversity globally.
However, The Paulson Institute in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and Cornell University estimates that there is still a financing gap for nature of $711 billion annually through to 2030. And at COP16 in 2024, only 25 governments had committed to their original goal by revising their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) to align with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Large scale private investment is therefore going to be essential in helping to restore and protect nature capital. But today, an alarmingly high number of available environmental investments are still poor quality, immeasurable and don’t deliver on the intended environmental outcomes.
References https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf
https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/investing-in-nature_20240521.pdf
