Nature

UNEP FI members can now access a new database that matches nature- and biodiversity-related projects with public and private funders, facilitating an effective allocation of financial resources for biodiversity conservation and restoration. The loss of biodiversity and destruction of ecosystems is estimated to cost the global economy trillions of dollars. While nature efforts are mounting, $700 billion per year is lacking to close the biodiversity finance gap by 2030 according to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Governments and public funding alone are not enough to close this gap. Private finance, which now constitutes only 17% of investments in nature-based solutions, must increase drastically and assume a significant role in bridging the finance gap, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The Finance Resource Database for Biodiversity (FIRE), co-developed by the UNDP BIOFIN, UNEP FI, Cornell University, the Campai...

Musical performances usually happen in concert halls or clubs, but famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is exploring a new venue: U.S. national parks. In a project called Our Common Nature, Ma is performing in settings such as the Great Smoky Mountains and the Grand Canyon. By making music and bringing people together in scenic places, Ma aims to help humans understand where they fit in the natural world. “What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?” Ma mused in a recent New York Times article. There’s a buzzword for this outlook: nature-positive. And it’s cropping up at high-level meetings, including the 2021 G-7 summit in Cornwall, England and the COP15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that adopted an ambitious framework for protecting nature in December 2022. As a group of environmental leaders wrote in 2021: &...

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley spoke passionately to the United Nations General Assembly in September about the mounting debt many developing countries are shouldering and its increasing impact on their ability to thrive. The average debt for low- and middle-income countries, excluding China, reached 42% of their gross national income in 2020, up from 26% in 2011. For countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the annual payments just to service that debt averaged 30% of their total exports. At the same time, these countries are facing a “triple crisis of climate change, of pandemic and indeed now the conflict that is leading to the inflationary pressures that lead regrettably to people taking circumstances into their own hands,” Mottley said. Rising borrowing costs coupled with high inflation and slow economic growth have left developing countries like hers in a difficult position when it comes to climate change. High debt payments mean countries have...