With some 55% of the world’s GDP either moderately or heavily dependent on nature, according to PwC, opens new tab, much more finance needs to flow away from activities that harm nature towards activities that support it.
Indeed, the U.N. Environment Programme estimates , opens new tabthat annual investments in nature-based solutions (NbS) need to increase from $200 billion to $542 billion by 2030 to tackle the planet’s climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises.
One important channel could be voluntary carbon markets, with the World Economic Forum saying it could be worth between $5 billion and $30 billion per year by 2030, with perhaps two thirds of this channelled into nature-based solutions.
However, in the last three years, only 1.2% of the annual cost-effective potential of NbS has been unlocked by the voluntary carbon market, the WEF says.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.