Financing for nature must more than double by 2025: Report

The world must drastically increase financing for nature-based solutions to meet key climate, biodiversity, and land degradation goals, a United Nations report said Thursday.

The report comes as delegates from nearly 200 countries prepare to meet in Montreal next week to hammer out a new global biodiversity deal.

The second "State of Finance for Nature" report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said investments must increase to $384 billion per year by 2025, more than double the current figure of $154 billion per year.

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By 2030 finance flows of $484 billion a year will be required for nature-based solutions to meet challenges such as limiting global warming levels to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, halting biodiversity loss, achieving land degradation neutrality and more, the report said.

"As we transition to net-zero emissions by 2050, we must also reorient all human activity to ease the pressure on the natural world on which we all depend," said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director.

Governments currently provide 83 per cent of financing for nature-based solutions but will be limited by fiscal challenges linked to conflict, debt and poverty, and so the private sector must significantly raise its investments from the current $26 billion a year, the report added.

This would involve working towards sustainable supply chains, reducing activities that are harmful to climate and biodiversity goals, and offsetting unavoidable harms by engaging with nature markets.

Limiting long-term global warming to 1.5C will require funding for sustainable agriculture and peatland restoration, as phasing out coal and decarbonizing the energy sector will not be sufficient by itself, the report found.