PANAMA CITY, Panama, Jun 04 (IPS) – In a world marked by armed battle, threats to democracy, technological disruptions, and geopolitical tensions, many individuals are asking: Why ought to we prioritize environmental crises when there are different, extra seen or perceived as extra pressing challenges?
From the angle shared by the United Nations Growth Programme (UNDP) and Sweden, by means of the Swedish Worldwide Growth Cooperation Company (SIDA), the reply is evident: there is no such thing as a affluent financial system, stability, peace, or improvement potential on a degraded planet.
The so-called “triple planetary disaster”—local weather change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution—is just not an remoted environmental drawback: it’s a multiplier of social and financial dangers. It disrupts markets, weakens meals safety, drives pressured migration, and erodes group resilience.
Nevertheless, this disaster additionally represents a historic alternative to rethink present improvement fashions and discover potential options. Latin America and the Caribbean could lead on this paradigm shift by instance. The area is residence to 40% of the planet’s biodiversity and key ecosystems for local weather regulation.
But, it faces a paradox: its huge pure capital stands in stark distinction to inadequate funding to guard it. The Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and Cornell College estimated in 2020 that the worldwide biodiversity financing hole is between US$598–$824 billion yearly.
On the similar time, worldwide sources for local weather motion fall far brief of what’s wanted. In keeping with the Financial Fee for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the area must multiply its local weather finance flows by 8 to 10 instances to fulfill the commitments international locations outlined of their Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs), that are important for lowering emissions and adapting to local weather change.
Confronted with this problem, inexperienced finance turns into a strategic software. Attaining this requires formidable public insurance policies, stable regulatory frameworks, actual dedication from main productive sectors, and, above all, large-scale useful resource mobilization.
Right here, the personal sector can and should be a key participant, particularly if it has an enabling framework that reduces funding danger, supported by governments and their public and monetary establishments.
UNDP and Sweden are working collectively by means of the Inexperienced Revolutionary Finance for Latin America and the Caribbean (GIF 4 LAC) initiative. This partnership helps international locations in mobilizing local weather and environmental finance by strengthening their regulatory frameworks, producing knowledge to enhance transparency, and facilitating collaboration with the personal sector. The objective is evident: to make sustainability a viable, scalable, and replicable funding.
We’re already seeing outcomes. Because of a course organized by UNDP and INCAE Enterprise College as a part of the initiative, a authorities crew in El Salvador strengthened the case for an electrical bus venture in San Salvador. The venture secured a $5 million mortgage from the Growth Financial institution of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and has the potential to mobilize as much as an extra $300 million to remodel the nation’s public transport system.
We’re additionally collaborating with main corporations resembling Devcco, which promotes clear applied sciences for district cooling techniques in Latin American cities, and Avfall Sverige, the Swedish Waste Administration Affiliation, which promotes the zero-waste mannequin. It’s certainly potential to align profitability with sustainability.
Moreover, this initiative seeks to maximise the potential of the UNDP Setting and Power crew’s portfolio in Latin America and the Caribbean, which incorporates a big portfolio of tasks financed by worldwide environmental funds and platforms supporting public coverage and finance just like the Local weather Promise and the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN). These characterize the most important provide of help for NDCs and Nationwide Biodiversity Methods and Motion Plans (NBSAPs).
We will say with certainty that defending the planet is selling financial and social improvement in a sustainable manner. There can be no development with out wholesome ecosystems, and no competitiveness with out sustainability.
It is a objective that ought to encourage us to work collectively. We face a historic and decisive alternative that requires the participation of increasingly more stakeholders. Investing in nature is investing sooner or later.
Lyes Ferroukhi is Regional Workforce Chief, Setting and Power in Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP.
Karin Metell is Head of Regional Cooperation for Latin America, Swedish Worldwide Growth Cooperation Company (SIDA)
IPS UN Bureau
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