My thanks to the University of Oxford for the invitation to speak at the Nature-based Solutions Conference 2022 aimed at ensuring that nature’s solutions contribute to human and ecological communities that are truly able to thrive. Because we can all agree – we are not there yet.
Humanity has sleepwalked its way into the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste. As we see in heatwaves and extreme weather events. As we see in the billions of hectares of degraded land and species extinction. As we see in the deaths and ill health caused by pollution of the air, land and water.
Thanks to science and the environmental movement, however, we have woken up. The international community has shown increasing will to act with the force and speed needed to halt the triple planetary crisis. The community has shown that it increasingly understands we must keep nature healthy, so it can keep us healthy.
At the last climate meeting in Glasgow, COP 26, we saw clear commitments on nature.
Through the Glasgow Declaration, world leaders committed to conserving and restoring forests and other terrestrial ecosystems. More than USD 19 billion was pledged to help protect and restore forests globally – including more than USD 1 billion to help indigenous peoples and local communities exercise decision-making and design roles in climate programmes and finance instruments.
New ways of doing business were promised. Twenty-eight countries pledged to protect forests while promoting development and trade through the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Roadmap. Twelve companies with a major global market share in commodities such as soy, palm oil, cocoa and cattle committed to halt forest loss associated with their businesses. Over 30 financial institutions managing over USD 8 trillion in assets committed to work on eliminating agricultural commodity-driven deforestation risks in their investment and lending portfolios by 2025.
At the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly, in February this year, we saw a further strong commitment to acting for nature and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The political declaration in Nairobi stressed the urgent need to halt the decline of biodiversity and the fragmentation of habitats – while four resolutions on nature covered issues from biodiversity and health, nature-based solutions and animal welfare.
Passing an agreed multilateral definition of nature-based solutions may sound esoteric, but it provides a real basis to start building such solutions – which are defined as actions to protect, conserve, restore and sustainably use ecosystems for the benefit of humanity and nature itself. The ask now is to move from terminology to substance – which is why member states tasked UNEP with beginning intergovernmental consultations on increasing and financing nature-based solutions. Finally, Stockholm+50 showed that the world is ready for system-wide transformations that place human well-being at the centre of a healthy planet.
These moves make perfect sense, because nature-based solutions are a critical tool to overcome the many challenges we face.
Nature-based solutions – such as ecosystem restoration – can provide 40 per cent of the climate change mitigation effort until 2030. Nature-based solutions provide natural barriers to risks: such as storms, floods, and zoonotic diseases. Nature-based solutions boost human health. Many of the pharmaceuticals we use derive from nature. But we also know that nature itself is good for our health. Moving in nature is good for stress relief, for cardiovascular health and for managing diabetes. We also know that children who was exposed to nature have good cognitive development, and this is obviously something we want for all our children. Nature-based solutions promote diverse and sustainable agriculture: controlling pests, fertilizing soil, pollinating crops, and reducing emissions from sources such as methane. Nature-based solutions help cities become low-carbon and resilient: from green roofs to permeable pavements to trees and agriculture within cities. Nature-based solutions help indigenous peoples and local communities thrive and, as the best stewards of biodiversity, indigenous peoples can make a real contribution to preserving nature. And nature-based solutions provide jobs: green, lasting jobs that do not harm the planet.
To really boost these solutions, we need to capitalize on some key moments ahead.
We need to see real ambition at the next climate meeting. This means building on the Glasgow nature agenda and looking more at putting nature-based solutions in nationally determined contributions ahead of COP27 in Egypt later this year.
We need to reach real and ambitious agreement on the Global Biodiversity Framework at COP 15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The fourth-open ended working group just concluded here in Nairobi, and we saw some progress on key issues. However, much progress needs to be made. We need to integrate the agendas of the Rio Conventions – on climate, on biodiversity and on desertification. Nature-based solutions can help to fulfil the goals of these three key multilateral agreements, so we need to use common language and common approaches.
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is a great way to unite these agendas. The Decade shows we can simultaneously tackle biodiversity loss, climate change and poverty with nature-based solutions – generating trillions of dollars in ecosystem services and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
We also need to remember that each year we delay on action across climate, nature and pollution, the costs rise. So, we must accelerate investments in nature now.
Investments need to triple by 2030 if we are to meet climate, biodiversity and land neutrality targets. Currently, only USD 133 billion per year flows into nature-based solutions, majority of it from public finance. So, scaling-up private investments for nature-based solutions is one of the central challenges of the next few years.
Public finance must leverage private finance – and we need to see an environment that enables investments, including legislation to shift harmful subsidies to nature-positive subsidies. But as we engage the private sector, we must guard against greenwashing. Many corporations have made net-zero and nature-positive commitments but, as the UN Secretary-General has said, we need greater transparency and accountability to hold the private sector to account. Setting science-based targets is an important first step.
Friends, we have treated nature badly, of that there is no doubt. But nature is resilient. And nature is forgiving. If we back nature-based solutions as one of the main ways to address the triple planetary crisis, humanity and nature can once again become allies. And people and planet can thrive for centuries to come.
Thank you.
