Thirty Dollars to Destroy Nature, One Dollar to Protect It
HAVANA TIMES – For every dollar the world invests in protecting nature, it spends 30 dollars on destroying it, according to a study released Thursday the 21st by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
“While financing for nature-based solutions advances slowly, harmful investments and subsidies are skyrocketing,” noted UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen when presenting the report.
Using data from 2023, the study State of Finance for Nature 2026 estimates total negative financial flows for nature at 7.3 trillion dollars.
Of that amount, 4.9 trillion came from private sources highly concentrated in a few sectors: utilities, industry, energy, and basic materials.
Environmentally harmful public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture, water, transport, and construction totaled 2.4 trillion in 2023.
In that same year, financial flows toward nature-based solutions (NbS) reached 220 billion dollars, nearly 90 percent of which came from public sources, “reflecting a steady increase in national and international support for NbS.”
By contrast, private investment in NbS reached just 23.4 billion dollars, 10 percent of total investments of that type.
Companies and private finance have still not invested in NbS at scale, despite growing awareness of nature-related dependencies, risks, and opportunities, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) points out.
The study estimates that investments in NbS must grow 2.5 times to reach 571 billion dollars a year by 2030. That figure represents just 0.5 percent of global GDP in 2024.
Andersen states, “if you follow the money, you see the magnitude of the challenge ahead. We can invest in the destruction of nature, or we can drive its recovery; there is no middle ground.”
Given that reforming and repurposing private and public capital flows is the most powerful tool for shifting markets toward sustainability, the report introduces a new “Nature Transition Curve.”
It is a framework designed to help policymakers and businesses sequence reforms and scale up high-integrity NbS across all sectors of the economy.
“Global financial flows urgently need to transition from environmental degradation to investment in nature-based solutions,” said Reem Alabali-Radovan, Germany’s Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The framework lays out a path for phasing out harmful subsidies and destructive investments in entrenched production systems, while expanding NbS and positive investments for nature.
It provides specific options for public and private sector companies across the supply chain, as “the private sector plays a key role in this process,” Alabali-Radovan said.
She added that “German development policy supports partner countries in valuing their natural capital so that it can be taken into account in key political decisions. This can pave the way toward a sustainable, forward-looking economy.”
The Nature Transition Curve also offers roadmaps for addressing the trillion-dollar challenge of a nature-positive transition economy.
The report includes cases from governments and business leaders around the world who are already applying it, for example greening urban areas to counteract heat island effects and improve citizens’ quality of life.
It also highlights integrating nature into road and energy infrastructure, and producing construction materials with negative emissions (greenhouse gases) using carbon dioxide.
In conclusion, the study identifies as a crucial principle of nature-positive investments that they be rooted in local ecological, cultural, and social contexts while ensuring inclusion and equity.