Rich nations urged to pay $60bn a year to protect developing-world nature

Kuala Lumpur — International environmental groups have called on the world’s richest nations to commit at least $60bn a year to protect and restore biodiversity in developing countries.

Governments are working to finalise an agreement to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems — similar to the Paris climate accord — at a two-part UN summit due to conclude in May in the Chinese city of Kunming.

The draft pact includes a goal to boost funding for nature conservation in developing nations by $10bn per year — in addition to the $5bn-$10bn now flowing. But environmental groups would like wealthy governments to provide a combined total of at least $60bn annually.

“This is a relatively modest investment for something that is so critical,” said Brian O’Donnell, director of the US-based Campaign for Nature, which is backing the call.

“[It] is essential if we want a viable future for life as we know it on the planet,” O'Donnell said by phone from Nairobi. More money is spent on handbags and video games each year than the $60bn being sought to protect nature, he said.

Improving conservation and management of natural areas, such as parks, oceans, forests and wildernesses, is seen as vital to safeguarding the ecosystems on which humans depend and limiting global warming to internationally agreed targets.

A flagship UN science report released on Monday made clear the link between the health and wellbeing of nature and of people, emphasising how functioning ecosystems provide the clean air, water, food and carbon storage human societies rely on.

UN officials and conservationists told a 2020 UN finance forum that $700bn a year in extra funding was needed over the next decade, from both governments and business, to protect those natural systems.

About $500bn of that could come from repurposing subsidies that today are harming nature, including for fossil fuel use and unsustainable farming, said O'Donnell.

But developing countries with tropical forests and other important ecosystems want donor governments to provide them with direct funding to meet the expected new nature goals.

Progress on the fresh set of global targets has been slow, with the UN biodiversity summit, known as COP15, already postponed three times due to the difficulties of meeting face to face during the coronavirus pandemic.

In-person negotiations to prepare for COP15 are scheduled from March 13-29 in Geneva.

Green groups backing the new call for donor funding include BirdLife International, Conservation International, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, The Nature Conservancy, Rainforest Trust, the Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF and the World Resources Institute.

They urged the US, EU member states, Britain, Japan, Canada, Norway and other wealthy countries to support the proposed $60bn annual funding target.

However, the signs are not encouraging given that wealthy nations have failed to fully deliver on a pledge, made back in 2009, to channel $100bn a year to poor and vulnerable countries from 2020 to help them tackle climate change.

O'Donnell said the new nature pact would need solid financing plans that hold governments accountable but could also be funded through taxes on corporations that have contributed to, or benefited from, biodiversity loss.

Research shows that 30% of threats to biodiversity are generated by international trade particularly of commodities produced in developing countries, such as palm oil and soybean, the green groups said.

Thomson Reuters Foundation