By Our Correspondent
A United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report says close to $7 trillion in public and private sector resources are annually invested in activities that negatively impact nature.
UNEP released the report at the ongoing climate change conference (COP28), on Saturday, in Dubai, UAE.
It noted that nature-based solutions remained dramatically underfunded.
The document stated that current public and private finance flows into nature-based solutions are only $200 billion per year.
“There is urgent need for realignment of public and private nature-negative finance flows,” it added.
To meet climate, biodiversity and restoration targets, the study said there was a need to triple the current finance flows into nature-based solutions to the climate crisis by 2030. And quadruple by 2050.
“Nature-based solutions are dramatically underfunded. Annual nature-negative investments are over 30 times larger than financing for nature-based solutions.
“That is solutions that promote a stable climate, healthy land and nature.
“To have any chance of meeting sustainable development goals, we must flip these numbers with true custodians of the land.
“Such custodians must be Indigenous Peoples, among the chief beneficiaries,” Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP said.
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These findings are based on an analysis of global financial flows. It reveals that private nature-negative finance flows amount to $5 trillion annually.
This is 140 times larger than the $35 billion of private investments in nature-based solutions.
The five industries channelling most of the negative financial flows include construction, electric utilities, real estate, oil and gas, and food and tobacco.
Reacting, Niki Mardas, Executive Director of Global Canopy said this year’s report “is a stark reminder that continuing with ‘business as usual’ poses a severe threat to our planet.
“This reinforces the urgent need for a transition to sustainable business practices and to stop the financing of nature destruction.
“The net is tightening, with increased regulatory pressure in key areas like tackling deforestation.
“It means those companies and financial institutions, need to make best use of data, guidance and frameworks available.”
The report noted government spending on environmentally harmful subsidies in four sectors.
These sectors include agriculture, fossil fuels, fishery and forestry., which gulped $1.7 trillion in 2022.
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