Reuters

May 19, 2021
Germany helped launch a new billion-dollar fund on Wednesday to tackle rapidly depleting global biodiversity, as countries missed key land and marine conservation targets but prepare to ramp up efforts in the decade ahead.

Protecting biodiversity has risen up the global agenda, not least because scientists say the destruction of remote natural habitats facilitates the spread of diseases such as the new coronavirus to humans as they come into closer contact with other species.

The United Nations hopes to secure an agreement at the next Biodiversity Convention meeting in China in October to protect and conserve 30% of the Earth's land and water by 2030.

"The concept of '30 by 30' is quite a big political ask, but we need these kinds of targets because they are a perfect way to harness political will," said James Hardcastle, a conservationist at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), referring to the campaign by its tagline.

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The Conversation

May 11, 2021
President Joe Biden calls climate change “the existential crisis of our time” and has taken steps to curb it that match those words. They include returning the U.S. to the Paris Agreement; creating a new climate Cabinet position; introducing a plan to slash fossil fuel subsidies; and announcing ambitious goals to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

But climate change is not the only global environmental threat that demands attention. Scientists widely agree that loss of wildlife and the natural environment is an equally urgent crisis. Some argue that biodiversity loss threatens to become Earth’s sixth mass extinction. But unlike efforts to fight climate change – which center on clear, measurable goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – there is no globally accepted metric for saving biodiversity.

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Phys.org

April 14, 2021
New Zealand will force banks to reveal the impact their investments have on climate change under world-first legislation intended to make the financial sector's environmental record transparent, officials said.

Commerce Minister David Clark said the law would make climate reporting mandatory for banks, insurance companies and investment firms.

"Becoming the first country in the world to introduce a law like this means we have an opportunity to show real leadership and pave the way for other countries to make climate-related disclosures mandatory," he said.

Clark said it would force financial institutions to consider the real-world impact their investments have on the climate and allow the public to gauge their performance.

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BBC

April, 8, 2021
Speaking at an IMF and World Bank meeting, Prince William said protecting nature continued to play only a small part in combating global warming.

He said investing in reforestation and sustainable agriculture were "cost effective" ways of tackling the issue.

Banks have come under increasing pressure to step up efforts to help fight climate change.

Just this week, Barclays' London headquarters was the target of a protest staged by climate activist group Extinction Rebellion. Members held placards and broke several windows as they called on the bank to stop financing fossil fuel companies.

Addressing central bankers and finance ministers at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the duke said the world's natural habitats continue to decline at an "alarming rate".

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Reuters

April 8, 2021
Green debt swaps have the potential to spur accelerated action on climate change in developing countries, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, pledging to present an option for such instruments by November.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said it made sense to address the dual climate and debt crises at the same time, and IMF members on Thursday had strongly backed the Fund taking a bigger role on the issue of climate risk.

“When we are faced with this dual crisis - the debt pressures on countries and the climate crisis, to which many low-income countries are highly, highly vulnerable - it makes sense to seek this unity of purpose,” Georgieva said.

“In other words, green debt swaps have the potential to contribute to climate finance. They have the potential to facilitate accelerated action in developing countries,” she told reporters after a meeting of the IMF’s steering committee.

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UNEP

March 10, 2021
One year from the onset of the pandemic, recovery spending has fallen short of nations’ commitments to build back more sustainably. An analysis of spending by leading economies, led by Oxford’s Economic Recovery Project and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), finds only 18.0% of announced recovery spending can be considered ‘green.’

The report, Are We Building Back Better? Evidence from 2020 and Pathways for Inclusive Green Recovery Spending, calls for governments to invest more sustainably and tackle inequalities as they stimulate growth in the wake of the devastation wrought by the pandemic.

The most comprehensive analysis of COVID-19-related fiscal rescue and recovery efforts by 50 leading economies so far, the report reveals that only $368bn of $14.6tn COVID-induced spending (rescue and recovery) in 2020 was green.

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International Institute for Sustainable Development

March 8, 2021
The UK Government has published an independent review that provides a global assessment of the economic benefits of biodiversity and the costs of biodiversity loss, and recommends actions to simultaneously enhance biodiversity and deliver economic prosperity.

In 2019, the UK Government commissioned Cambridge University economist Partha Dasgupta to provide a global review on the economics of biodiversity. Following the publication of an interim report in April 2020, the final publication titled, ‘The Economics of Biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review,’ was issued ahead of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The publication’s formal launch, hosted by the Royal Society, took place on 2 February 2021.   

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UN News

March 2, 2021
The UN chief highlighted that the global economy increased almost fivefold in the past fifty years, but that growth was at a massive cost to the environment. 

“Nature’s resources still do not figure in countries’ calculations of wealth. The current system is weighted towards destruction, not preservation”, he said. 

“The bottom line … is that we need to transform how we view and value nature. We must reflect nature’s true value in all our policies, plans and economic systems”, Mr. Guterres urged, adding that by doing so, investment can be directed into actions that protect and restore nature. 

“The rewards will be immense”, he said. 

The call by the Secretary-General comes as countries convened at the UN Statistical Commission are set to deliberate a new statistical framework to measure economic prosperity and human well-being, which includes the contributions of nature. 

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BusinessGreen

February 11, 2021
Putting off action to protect biodiversity will double the cost and result in the extinction of many more species when compared to acting now to curb global impacts, according to sobering findings published by Vivid Economics and the Natural History Museum this morning. 

The Urgency of Biodiversity Action study - which was submitted as evidence to the landmark Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity - compares the costs and impacts of acting now to prevent the rapid decline of biodiversity loss with a scenario where stronger actions to conserve nature are deferred until 2030.

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Forbes

February 4, 2021
“We are embedded in Nature” and “nature is more than a mere economic good”, writes Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta in the new publication commissioned by the UK Treasury.

“Nature nurtures and nourishes us, so we will think of assets as durable entities that not only have use value, but may also have intrinsic worth.”

Dasgupta’s review presents the first comprehensive economic framework of its kind for biodiversity. And possibly the most prestigious one.

Back in 2019, the UK Government commissioned Dasgupta to lead an independent, global review on the economics of biodiversity. After an interim report in April 2020, the study was officially launched on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Royal Society and attended by the Prince of Wales, UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson and David Attenborough.

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Associated Press

February 2, 2021
A report commissioned by the British government is urging a radical transformation in the way that countries around the world assess the state of their economies by elevating the natural world as a key element in their economic planning.

The review of the economics of biodiversity by Professor Partha Dasgupta concludes that nature needs to become as valued as traditional gauges of economic wealth such as profits in the future.

In the 600-page review that was commissioned in 2019 by Britain’s Treasury, the University of Cambridge economist warned that current economic growth and prosperity have “come at a devastating cost to nature.” He said declines in biodiversity and the environment’s ability to provide food, clean water and air are “fueling extreme risk and uncertainty for our economies and well-being.”

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The New York Times

February 2, 2021
The global system is built on buying and selling, but often, no one pays for the most basic goods and services that sustain life — water to drink, soil to grow food, clean air to breathe, rain forests that regulate the climate.

Continuing to ignore the value of nature in our global economy threatens humanity itself, according to an independent report on biodiversity and economics, commissioned by the British government and issued Tuesday. The study, led by Partha Dasgupta, a Cambridge University economist, is the first comprehensive review of its kind.

“Even while we have enjoyed the fruits of economic growth, the demand we have made on nature’s goods and services has for some decades exceeded her ability to supply them on a sustainable basis,” Mr. Dasgupta said. “The gap has been increasing, threatening our descendants’ lives.”

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Reuters

February 2, 2021
Humans have built up their economic wealth by going hugely overdrawn with the bank of nature, which is in deep trouble and must be reassessed as a valuable and finite asset, an academic review commissioned by the British government said on Tuesday.

The Dasgupta Review on the economics of biodiversity concludes that standard monetary measures of prosperity, such as gross domestic product, have excluded vital services provided by natural systems, such as water provision and climate protection.

As a result, forests, oceans and the wildlife they sustain have become dangerously degraded to a point that seriously threatens human society, as well as plants and animals.

To rectify this, business, governments and other institutions should boost efforts to price and understand the value of what nature provides and the costs of its loss, while easing unsustainable pressure on natural resources, the report said.

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Campaign For Nature

February 2, 2021
Destined to be as critically important as the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review was commissioned by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was released on February 2. 

The Dasgupta Review marks a major inflection point in global political economic discourse that puts forward a new economic paradigm in the same way that Adam Smith did in his time. The review calls for urgent and transformative change in how we think, act and measure economic success to protect and enhance our prosperity, and the natural world. As decision makers worldwide begin to rebuild economies in the wake of Covid 19, this Review should be a guide and catalyst for fundamental change.

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China Daily

January 18, 2021
Analysts said the commitment by China and some 50 other countries to protect 30 percent of the earth's land and oceans by 2030 was a much-needed step to halt biodiversity loss and prevent species extinction.

Realizing the mission, though, will not be easy as the new goal would mean a huge scale-up in protected land and ocean area compared to current levels.

The new commitment by 50-odd countries is "very positive and very much needed to address the linked global crisis we are facing on climate change and biodiversity loss", said Bruce Dunn, director of environment and safeguards at the Manila based Asian Development Bank's sustainable development and climate change department.

"Realizing this ambition will be challenging, however, because it means doubling the existing land area protected, and more than tripling the area of protected oceans," Dunn said.

"Protection also implies sustainable management and sustainable financing, which has been a big challenge with the existing estate of protected areas."

China was among a group of more than 50 countries that pledged to protect the planet's land and sea area by 2030 as part of efforts to stop plants and animals from becoming extinct and address climate change issues.

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