The world is waking up to huge economic benefits of investing in nature, from forests to coral reefs, after one of the "great oversights" of the 20th century, the head of the UN Environment Programme said on September 4.
Achim Steiner told Reuters that governments had long placed too much faith in technology to fix problems such as global warming, water pollution or erosion, instead of looking to natural solutions. "At the beginning of the 21st century we are being thrown back onto nature because you can't fix all these problems with technology," he said.
"The disproportion of investments in technological fixes versus investing in nature's ready-made solutions, tried and tested over millions of years, is one of the great oversights of the 20th century," he said. A UN-backed study this week, for instance, indicated that tropical forests provide services worth an estimated $6,120 per hectare (2.47 acres) a year such as food, building materials, water purification or opportunities for tourism.
A new UN climate pact due for agreement in December in Copenhagen is set to encourage measures to safeguard tropical forests that soak up greenhouse gases when they grow. Steiner said that governments should take an even wider view of the value of forests since storing heat-trapping carbon dioxide was only one aspect of a tree's worth.
COST BENEFITS:
He said his advice to governments and investors was: "Don't just look at a forest as a watershed, or a carbon sink, or as helping biodiversity, or a tourism attraction. Put them all together and then make a cost-benefit analysis." "The cumulative set of benefits you get from talking about a tree has to get economically captured," he said.
Among other natural systems, coral reefs provide services as nurseries for fish, protecting coasts from storms, or as scuba-diving holiday destinations. Or insects provide services, for instance, in pollinating crops.
"These services are not new. The problem was that we did not capture their value," Steiner said. Among examples, he said that Kenya planned to raise its forest cover to 10 percent from 1 percent by planting 7 billion trees to help restore an environment degraded by erosion and dwindling water supplies.
Steiner also said a call by UNEP last year for a "Green New Deal" of investments in clean economic growth to revive struggling economies had helped but that it was too soon to judge if it marked a permanent greener shift. "This concept struck a chord," he said of the idea, inspired by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" that helped end the Depression of the 1930s.
"Given that it was born out of a crisis I think it's had significant impact," he said, saying that economies such as China had given a high proportion of spending to green jobs.
He said it was "too early to predict" if the "Green New Deal" had become a "universal concept that will survive the calming down after the crisis." "A lot will depend on Copenhagen. The greatest stimulus package could be a deal in Copenhagen," he said of the new U.N: climate pact. Steiner was an early guest for a Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit on September 8-10.
Save forests, wetlands to fight climate change: study. Governments can help combat climate change by investing more in natural areas, including forests and mangroves, a European study said on September 2.
The paper pointed out that nations have natural assets worth trillions of dollars which could help fight global warming and save investment in industrial schemes for carbon capture.
"Natural systems represent one of the biggest untapped allies against the greatest challenge of this generation," said The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study, part of a global project, to be published next year.
Launched by Germany and the European Commission, the report is examining the economics of biodiversity loss.
An investment of $45 billion in protected areas could save nature-based services worth $4.5-$5.2 trillion a year, more than the value of the car, steel and information technology sectors, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters.
Scientists say preserving nature is crucial in fighting climate change but warn extinctions are speeding up due to human activity. Extinction rates are at 1,000 times their natural pace and three species vanish every hour, research shows.
The study highlighted the role of forests in naturally mitigating CO2 emissions as they absorb an estimated 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions every year.
Agreeing on funding to save forests must be a priority for governments at December's global talks in Copenhagen to try to agree on a successor to the Kyoto protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, said the authors of the report.
"To target the removal of carbon dioxide, the best mechanism we have is in nature. In tropical forests we have both an opportunity and a solution to the significant challenges we face," study leader Pavan Sukhdev told reporters.
The report highlighted the dangers facing coral reefs which have risen due to a build up of greenhouse gases. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are already irreversibly damaging coral reefs and their extinction would jeopardise the livelihoods of millions of people, said the study.
Coral reefs, which protect coastlines from the effects of global warming and are essential for some kinds of fish, are worth up to $170 billion a year, said the study.
"An estimated half a billion people depend on them for livelihoods and more than a quarter of marine fish species are dependent on coral reefs," said Sukhdev.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme said billions of dollars of government investment in power station carbon capture schemes may not be the full answer.
"Perhaps it is time to subject this to a full cost benefit analysis to see whether the technological option matches nature's ability to capture and store carbon," he said.
Forests said worth $6,120/year per hectare:
Tropical forests are worth $6,120 per hectare per year, according to a UN-backed survey indicating the world often under-estimates services provided by nature. Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme, said that ignoring nature and placing too much faith in human technology to fix the world's problems has been one of the "great oversights of the 20th century.
Following are preliminary estimates of the value of tropical forests in a report this week by UNEP-backed The Economics of Ecoystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).
TROPICAL FORESTS: (Value of ecosystem services, 2007 dollars per hectare)
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ECOSYSTEM SERVICES:
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Average Maximum Number
of studies
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Food 75 552 19
Water 143 411 3
Raw Materials 431 1,418 26
Genetic resources 483 1,756 4
Medicinal resources 181 562 4
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REGULATOIN SERVICES
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Influence on air quality 230 449 2
Climate regulation 1,965 3,218 10
Regulation of water flows 1,360 5,235 6
Waste treatment/water purification 177 506 6
Erosion prevention 694 1,084 9
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CULTURAL SERVICES
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Tourism/recreation 381 1,171 20
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TOTAL 6,120 16,362 109
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