What has been described as a shocking UN report launched on Saturday at COP28 in Dubai has shown that nearly $7 trillion of public and private finance each year supports activities that directly harm nature – some 30 times the amount spent on nature-based solutions annually.
The report from the UN’s environmental wing, UNEP, also revealed that despite decades of calls for ending finance flows towards sectors that harm some of humanity’s most valuable assets, those investments currently account for a whopping 7 percent of global GDP.
Saturday’s report launch comes as negotiations on the conference’s outcome text are shifting into high gear – COP28 is scheduled to close on Tuesday – and against the backdrop of the largest on-site action yet for climate justice.
Calls for ending the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and demanding reparations for ‘loss and damage’ can be heard ringing out at Dubai’s iconic Expo City venue.
This year’s State of Finance for Nature report is the first such survey to focus on what is known as “nature-negative finance flows” and underscores the urgency to address the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation.
The report, which was launched to coincide with a day set aside at the latest UN climate conference for discussions on nature and land use, also highlighted the fact that these investments dwarfed the annual amount being invested in nature-based solutions, which totaled roughly $200 billion last year.
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According to reports, a staggering $5 billion of these nature-negative finance flows come from the private sector, which is 140 times larger than private investments in nature-based solutions, and almost half of that stems from only 5 industries: construction, electric utilities, real estate, oil and gas, and food and tobacco.
One of UNEP’s partners contributing to the report is Global Canopy, a data-driven non-profit that targets market drivers that negatively impact nature. It’s Executive Director, Niki Mardas, told UN News that there is a group of companies or financial institutions who may be making nature-positive investments “and making a big noise about that, but aren’t even clear on their exposure to nature-negative [investments], particularly when it’s down their supply chains.”
Among other things, he emphasized that, while these companies must continue to make positive investments, they also need to do the hard and complex work of understanding how they are driving the problem. He added that they must start addressing that “not by getting out and not by divesting, but by engaging companies in their portfolios, by engaging companies in their supply chains so that they change their operations and their behaviour”.
Story was adapted from UN News.
