Nature-based solutions
What are Nature-based solutions (NbS) to climate change?
Nature-based solutions are actions that protect, conserve, and restore ecosystems while also addressing societal and economic difficulties. If implemented appropriately, these solutions can supply up to 37% of climate change mitigation needs.
Nature-based solutions are important because they re-focus the debate away from just biodiversity conservation and management principles to also include human societal issues. Resilient societies can only thrive within resilient ecosystems.
Nature-based solutions examples
As opposed to social impact projects like clean drinking water and improved cookstoves, NbS provide ecosystem-based approaches that protect and restore natural habitats while improving their capacity for carbon sequestration and climate resilience.
Here are examples of NbS technologies currently in use:
- Afforestation: growing forests in degraded or unforested regions
- Blue carbon: conserving and restoring coastal and marine ecosystems
- Soil organic carbon: improving soil through land management
- Improved forest management: setting up more sustainable forestry measures, including silviculture, selective logging, sustainable harvesting, biodiversity conservation, fire management, and community engagement
The goal for these actions is to mitigate the effects of climate change through natural solutions that improve the livelihoods of local communities. Because of their mutually beneficial approach, they contribute to many of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Implementing Nature-based solutions
Two out of every three governments that adopted the Paris Agreement include nature-based solutions in their national climate plans. And while nations continue to fund these projects, more financial support is required from businesses, NGOs, and other institutions to implement these solutions.
The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is a useful tool to support climate action towards the goal of net zero emissions. The VCM supports the implementation of nature-based solutions by providing finance for projects – especially forestry, agriculture, and wetlands – via carbon credits that reduce, avoid, and, especially for nature-based solutions, remove greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Nature-based solutions for companies are not a substitute for reductions within the value chain; they are an addition to urgently needed socio-ecological change, such as decarbonisation. Specifically with this in mind, the Science Based Targets initiative defined beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) in their Corporate Net-Zero Standard, which allows companies to support climate projects and GHG emission mitigation efforts outside of their own value chain.
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