Our economy is underpinned by nature
- The world’s economy relies on nature – $44 trillion of economic generation relies moderately or heavily on nature and would therefore be impacted by its loss.
- Around the world 1.2 billion jobs depend on a healthy natural environment, including forests, fishing, and farming.
- Over 90% of the world’s poorest people depend on forests for their livelihoods.
- Forests provide many services to people, the total value of intact forests and their ecosystem services is up to $150 trillion, around double the value of global stock markets.
Nature and Agriculture bear the brunt of climate impacts
- Globally, the agricultural sector already suffers from an average of 26% of the total damage and losses from climate-related disasters.
- Heat stress is estimated to threaten over 70% of global agriculture by 2045.
- 70% of the disruption to the food system could be on the supply chain within the food system, such as disruption and delays to delivery of foods.
- Insurance payouts to US farmers for crops lost due to droughts and flooding have risen three-fold over the past 25 years.
- Tipping points could be triggered in sensitive ecosystems. At 2 degrees of warming irreversible loss of Amazonia is possible.
- In the US, more than 72 million homes are at risk from wildfires – climate change is increasing the length, frequency and intensity of wildfires in the US
- The probabilities of a multi-breadbasket failure occurring at least once within a 10 year period increase from 10 percent in 2020, to 18 percent by 2030 and to 34 percent by 2050.
How does nature and nature friendly farming help people adapt?
- Regulate local / regional climate – large scale ecosystems can provide local cooling and help create microclimates to support regular rainfall
- Natural river systems, wetlands and upstream forest ecosystems reduce flood risk by storing water and slowing water flow, in most circumstances
- Coastal wetlands protect against coastal erosion and flooding associated with storms and sea level rise where sufficient space and adequate habitats are available
Restoring nature is an affordable way to help people adapt
- In the Southern Brazilian Amazon 56% of forests are predicted to be lost by 2050. But protecting them, and the rainfall they help to generate in the region, could prevent losses of up to $1 billion per year in farming yields
- The benefits of measures such as mangrove restoration are ten times the costs, and they are anywhere from 2-5 times cheaper than engineered structures like sea walls.
- Globally, mangroves already reduce flood damage by up to $82 billion every year.
- Restoring wetlands like peatlands can help people to cope with droughts and floods by storing water, and restoring or creating them can be 40% cheaper than building new reservoirs.
- Restoring wetlands and expanding floodplains around rivers has been found to reduce flood risk and thereby reduce insurance premiums by up to 55%.
- Planting trees in cities helps to improve air quality, provide cool and shady places, reduce flooding, and store more carbon. Across 245 cities a study found that tree planting could save up to 36,000 lives per year from improved air quality.
- In New York City, using natural approaches could lower the costs of adapting to flooding by $1.5 billion, compared to using engineered solutions alone.
- Restoring forests near the sources of river catchments in 534 of the world’s largest cities would save water companies $890 million per year in costs such as dealing with floods or treating water to improve its quality.
- In cities, investing just $100 million in more trees could cut temperatures by 1C for 77 million people.
Restoring nature has other benefits on our economy, health and environment
- Climate mitigation: According to the IPCC, all scenarios to limit warming to 1.5C or 2C require action on nature and food systems – Food and Nature contribute towards ⅓ of GHG emissions so protecting and restoring nature offers a contribution to tackling climate change
- Food security: In Malawi farms that use nature-friendly techniques are up to 80% more productive. In Shandong Province of China experiments with diverse crop planting showed a 15% increase in yields compared to conventional mono-crop farming. In Nepal the yield of maize was increased by 30% through the selection of a wider variety of types of the crop.
- Clean water: Restoring forests near rivers can improve water quality much further downstream too. For example, in Rio de Janeiro restoring forests is predicted to potentially save up to $79 million in water treatment costs.
- Health: 70% of cancer drugs are either from nature or synthetic but inspired by elements in the natural world. Healthy ecosystems help keep diseases in check and stop the spread of zoonotic diseases. Vegetation also acts to purify our air and lower respiratory illness.
But food and nature are still being marginalised in climate action
- The world’s leading scientific authorities on nature (IPBES) and climate (IPCC) have warned that if we continue to treat nature and climate in isolation we will push our planet to the brink of collapse.
- Most of the current NDCs pay insufficient attention to agriculture and other land-use emissions, to oceans’ potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, biodiversity impacts and broader NbS.
- 10% of countries’ plans to cut emissions mention nature-friendly farming (“agro-ecology”).
- Less than 5% of all climate finance goes towards adaptation to its impacts and less than 1% goes to nature-based solutions
- Only 9% of public money spent on climate adaptation goes to nature-based solutions.
