Protected areas alone can offer nature-based services worth $5 trillion a year on the back of an investment of $45 billion.
India’s case for including afforestation and reforestation in the global climate change negotiations has got strengthened. A new report has said that arriving at an agreement on funding for forests at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December should be a key priority for fighting climate change and climate-proofing vulnerable economies.
The report was issued in Berlin on September 2 by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a project launched by Germany and the European Commission and hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme to study the economics of biodiversity loss.
In a telephonic interview to The Financial Express, TEEB study leader Pavan Suhdev said that investing in ecosystem-based measures such as financing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) can not only help in fighting climate change, but also alleviating poverty because forests play a role in providing services like freshwaters, soil stabilisation, nutrients for agriculture, food and fuel.
The report notes that 5 gigatonnes or 15% of the carbon dioxide emissions worldwide are being absorbed by forests annually. The coral reef ecosystem alone offers services including coastal defense and fish nurseries worth $170 billion annually. Half a billion people are estimated to derive their livelihoods from the ecosystem. Protected areas alone can offer nature-based services worth $5 trillion a year on the back of an investment of $45 billion.
Calling upon governments to consider these factors to evolve a forest carbon finance package for inclusion in a robust agreement in Copenhagen, Sukhdev emphasised that it can help in developing a new Green Economy, which values and builds on natural or nature-based assets. Sukdev also heads the Green Economy Initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is on secondment from Deutsche Bank.
The report was launched by Sukhdev along with German federal environment minister Sigmar Gabriel, European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.