Join us at an upcoming event — online or in person — looking at how we can make a positive change for the planet
Humanity is facing the twin risks of climate change and the loss of nature and its biodiversity. Both risks, to a large extent, are due to human behavior. Nature, according to science, also holds the key to mitigating climate change. Changing our mindset towards nature, from viewing it as an externality, to one that places nature at the center of economic activity is key to saving nature, reducing climate risk, and saving humanity.
In this seminar, we will provide a road map as to how to build an equitable and inclusive economy with nature and people at its core. We will highlight the challenges, opportunities, and the promise of building such a nature-based economic by providing examples from the blue carbon market.
Policy plays a pivotal role in the development and governance of nature markets. This includes prudential, regulatory, coordinating, and incentivizing roles that Central Banks, in particular, and macroeconomic policy, in general, need to shoulder.
The term “Blue Carbon” was coined by Prof. Duarte and co-authors, which refers to the potential to mitigate and adapt to climate change through the conservation and restoration of coastal habitats, including seagrass meadows, mangroves and salt-marshes, which represent the most intense carbon sinks in the biosphere. Since the strategy was proposed in 2009, Blue Carbon has grown to become a mainstream nature-based solution to climate change with important co-benefits.
By mobilizing billions of euros in carbon and biodiversity credits while helping provide jobs and sustainable livelihoods for communities implementing the projects, blue carbon converges with the efforts to rebuild blue natural capital, the ecosystem components that support human wellbeing. Indeed, blue natural capital is the new “blue real estate”, breaking through the 2,000 years of considering the ocean “terra nullis” (No one’s land), where living marine organisms had no intrinsic value and only gained value when dead (and sold).
Finally, we will provide examples of how a new economy of nature could be designed such that it realizes the economic value of the benefits flowing from Blue natural capital, thereby ensuring sustainable and shared prosperity for all.
