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TWN Info Service
on Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge (Nov21/03) ‘Nature Based Solutions’ will not address biodiversity and climate crises A new report from Friends of the Earth International spotlights how ‘Nature Based Solutions’ are a dangerous deception and distraction from the real solutions to the climate crisis (Item 1). The report traces the origins of the concept, how it is manipulated by big business, and what is driving it. The report finds that ‘Nature Based Solutions’ would allow corporations and governments to continue with business as usual while failing to cut carbon emissions at source. The amount of land required to mitigate carbon emissions at the scale suggested by its promoters would be so vast that this would mean kicking farmers and communities off their lands, destroying their livelihoods and razing local wildlife. Moreover, the concept threatens to co-opt and corrupt genuine solutions from social and peasant movements which practice genuinely close-to-nature farming approaches, such as agroecology and community forest management. As the climate and biodiversity crises are interconnected, the Global Biodiversity Framework currently negotiated under the Convention on Biological Diversity also addresses climate issues. The initial draft of the framework introduced “Nature Based Solutions” as the answer to these interconnected crises. Draft 1, which is the current basis of the negotiations, does not includes “Nature Based Solutions”. However, in its Target 8, it proposes that biodiversity should be responsible for mitigating 10 Gt CO2-e. This would lead to, for example, more monoculture tree plantations and BECCS projects, which spell landgrabbing, rights violations and inaction on real emissions cuts. A briefing, also from Friends of the Earth International, explains what should be in the Framework’s climate target, and why the 10 Gt CO2-e simply doesn’t make sense (Item 2). With best wishes, Item 1 Ahead of UN climate summit Friends of the Earth International spotlights how ‘Nature Based Solutions’ is being used to disguise climate-trashing business-as-usual 27 October 2021. Amsterdam, Netherlands and Glasgow, UK. The concept of Nature Based Solutions – being touted by corporations, business associations and governments ahead of COP26 – is a dangerous deception and distraction from the real solutions to the climate crisis, says Friends of the Earth International in a new report. As the clock ticks towards 2030, keeping global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees means taking real action now to cut carbon emissions at source and transition to renewable energy. Nature Based Solutions: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, published by the global grassroots environmental organisation in the run-up to this year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, UK, exposes the disastrous consequences that lie ahead for swathes of the world’s population if the claims being made for Nature Based Solutions are accepted uncritically – notably for small scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples and local communities in countries much less wealthy than the UK. The report traces the origins of the concept, how it is manipulated by big business, and what is driving it as countries head towards the UN climate summit. Under the guise of Nature Based Solutions, big business and governments continue to expand climate and nature-trashing operations, including industrial agriculture and fossil fuel extraction, while claiming to address their climate impacts through investment in activities such as mass tree planting.
Yet, to mitigate carbon emissions at the scale suggested by its promoters, afforestation would require almost 700 million hectares of land – an area nearly the size of Australia. Not only would that mean kicking farmers and communities off their lands, destroying their livelihoods and razing local wildlife, but the amount of land claimed by the sum of the hundreds of corporate tree-planting strategies just doesn’t add up. What’s more, says Friends of the Earth International, Nature Based Solutions allow corporations and governments to continue with business as usual while failing to cut carbon emissions at source. Concept created by big business as a new form of greenwash Friends of the Earth International’s research finds that the concept of Nature Based Solutions threatens to co-opt and corrupt genuine solutions from social and peasant movements which practice genuinely close-to-nature farming approaches, such as agroecology and community forest management. It is being used to justify the expansion of agribusiness, with numerous schemes planned or under way – from tree plantations to gene drives – now being referred to under this new umbrella term Nature Based Solutions. But they are neither solutions nor natural. The authors find that adoption of the idea of Nature Based Solutions is likely to:
Co-author Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International, said: “Nature Based Solutions is a bad idea dressed up in acceptable terminology and beautiful imagery – a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The term sounds good but is so broad and vague that it can refer to anything – from real solutions such as indigenous-based ecosystem restoration to damaging activities like monoculture tree plantations. Much of what is being done in the name of Nature Based Solutions is little more than a repackaging of previously discredited market-based approaches such as REDD and REDD+.(2) Companies must cut carbon emission at source, not go in for greenwashing and displacement activities.” (1) Page 8, Nature
Based Solutions: A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING, 2021 The report is available in English, French and Spanish, here. Item 2 https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Target-8-Briefing-note.pdf Briefing note on
Target 8 By Doreen Stabinsky
1. What the target
should contain The elements of the target should first and foremost focus on reducing these two types of threats to biodiversity. An additional element would include actions that might be taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change that would enhance biodiversity at the same time. The first and most obvious element of a target should be to reduce the threats to biodiversity from climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from all sources, including from deforestation and agriculture and animal production. The second element of the target should ensure that mitigation actions taken do not harm biodiversity. The target should call attention to threats to biodiversity from, inter alia: geoengineering; large-scale afforestation that replaces forests and other natural ecosystems with tree plantations; and bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) projects, which will require enormous land areas to be set aside for biomass production. A third element to be included in this target would prioritize mitigation and adaptation actions that protect, restore, and/or enhance biodiversity and nature’s contribution to people. Such actions include approaches for ecosystem restoration and sustainable, resilient, and equitable management practices in agriculture, such as agroecology, agroforestry, and silvopastoralism, which enhance biological diversity in agroecosystems. 2. What the target should not contain We recommend deletion of the phrase “contributing at least 10 Gt CO2-e per year to global mitigation efforts”. There are at least five reasons to delete this phrase. First, the GBF is about biodiversity. The target is about reducing climate- change-related threats to biodiversity. Therefore the target should be worded to reflect actions and objectives for the protection, restoration, enhancement of biodiversity. Carbon is not a metric that can do this. Second, carbon storage varies widely across ecosystems and is not correlated with richness of biodiversity. Using a carbon-based target could actually incentivize the destruction of species-rich ecosystems that have low carbon- sequestration value. The prioritization of carbon could provide incentives to convert species-rich ecosystems to projects focused on carbon sequestration, such as large-scale afforestation with monoculture tree plantations and/or BECCS projects. Third, the figure 10 Gt CO2-e attempts to sum the mitigation potential from two types of mitigation action that are not commensurable. The first type of action is avoiding and reducing emissions through halting deforestation and adopting alternative management practices in working lands and forest. The second type of action is sequestering carbon (sometimes described as enhancing removals) through ecosystem restoration and alternative management practices. Avoiding emissions and enhancing sequestration are not equivalent processes and therefore not additive. 10 Gt CO2-e is a scientifically meaningless, inaccurate, and inappropriate figure to include, either in the target itself or as an indicator. Fourth, the 10 Gt CO2-e figure is derived from a set of scientific papers that measure the mitigation potential of very specific types of actions that take ecosystem protection and enhancement into consideration. It is dangerous to cite the 10 Gt CO2-e figure without also describing the specific types of ecosystem-based mitigation actions from which the figure is derived, which actually protect, restore, and enhance biodiversity. Specifically, the authors estimate that to reach their figures of 5 Gt CO2-e of avoided emissions and 5 Gt CO2-e of enhanced removals would require:
Fifth, valuing biodiversity in terms of its carbon is the first step necessary to turn nature into a commodity for the carbon offset market. This should be avoided.
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