🔎 What’s going on?
Last week, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched the first-ever global standards for nature-based solutions for climate projects.
🌻 Sounds like a big deal, so let’s break it down...
Let’s first understand what Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are. NbS are actions that work with, protect and enhance nature to address the societal challenges we face such as the climate crisis, food and water security. Some examples of NbS include restoring and protecting forests and wetlands catchment, introducing nature into cities, coastal habitat restoration (e.g. coral reefs, seagrass meadows and mangrove forests), regenerative agriculture and agroforestry.
The global standard consists of 8 interconnected criteria and 28 indicators:
- NbS should effectively address at least one societal challenge
- Design of NbS is informed by scale
- NbS results in a net gain to biodiversity and ecosystem integrity
- NbS are economically viable
- NbS are based on inclusive, transparent and empowering governance processes
- NbS equitably balance trade-offs between the achievement of their primary goal(s) and the continued provision of multiple benefits
- NbS are managed adaptively, based on evidence
- NbS are sustainable and mainstreamed within an appropriate jurisdictional context
The standard is for governments, cities, businesses, and organisations that are working to implement nature-based projects that count towards their climate plans.
❓ Why should I care?
We are currently facing multiple major societal challenges such as the climate crisis, human health, food security, water security, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, disaster risk reduction and economic and social development.
According to the IUCN, more than 130 countries have so far embraced nature-based solutions in national climate plans to comply with the Paris Agreement. But how do we measure and verify the economic, environmental and societal benefits or impacts of these Nature-based solutions? This is where the global standard comes into play.
🚦 Where do we need to be?
Every organisation and government adopts this Nature-based solutions framework as the basis to design, implement, report, and account for the impact of nature-based climate projects they start. Even though this framework is a great start, we’re still a long way away from actual effective accounting of the full impacts of Nature-based solutions. Mostly because this is a completely nascent approach of putting nature at the centre of economic development. Less than 5% of climate finance is currently channelled towards NbS. A huge opportunity.
👤 What can I do about it?
If you are an organisation, adopt this new NbS framework and start implementing NbS to mitigate your climate impact.
If you are a citizen in the UK, then consult on the new ‘England Tree Strategy’ - our very own nature-based solution! England’s current tree cover is just 10% of land and can be easily increased to 35% in a few years. A simple solution such as restoring trees could have huge potential for fighting both the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Related: Wild bison to return to the UK after 6000 years