Nature-based Solutions for climate

Climate change poses a fundamental threat to nature, species, and people. However, nature also provides key solutions for both carbon storage and building climate resilience – if the global community takes steps to protect, restore, and better manage our natural resources.

About Nature-based Solutions for climate

The Paris Climate Agreement commits to keep global warming below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. The actions of the international community between now and 2030 will determine whether we can collectively slow warming enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Above the 1.5 °C limit, the risks of extreme weather and collapsing ecosystems grow. The latest IPCC report demonstrated that nature-based solutions such as reducing the destruction of forests and other ecosystems, restoring them, and improving the management of working lands, such as farms — are among the top five most effective strategies for mitigating carbon emissions by 2030.

Nature-based Solutions for both mitigation and adaptation serve as an integral piece of the required global response for climate action.

Nature-based solutions can address climate change in three ways:

  1. Decrease greenhouse gas emissions related to deforestation and land use
  2. Capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
  3. Enhance resilience of ecosystems, and as such support societies to adapt to climate hazards such as flooding, sea-level rise, and more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires.

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30%

Nature-based Solutions could contribute around 30%
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of the global mitigation required by 2030/2050 to achieve the 1.5/2°C temperature rise goal agreed to under the Paris Agreement

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5 GtCO2e

Nature-based Solutions could deliver emission reductions

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and removals of at least 5 GtCO2e per year by 2030 (of a maximum estimate of 11.7 GtCO2e per year).

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USD 393 Billion

in cost savings by 2050 from using NbS
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which can reduce the intensity of climate hazards by 26%

IUCN's work on NbS for climate

IUCN works to advance practical nature-based solutions for both climate mitigation and adaptation, centred on the better conservation, management and restoration of the world’s ecosystems. Learn more at the links below.

Enhancing Nature-based Solutions for an Accelerated Climate Transformation (ENACT)

The ENACT initiative coordinates global efforts to address climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss through Nature-based Solutions (NbS). The initiative will also produce an annual State of Nature-based Solutions report to update COP28 and subsequent meetings on progress in implementing NbS commitments. At the UNFCCC COP28, the Egyptian COP27 Presidency, the Government of Germany and IUCN launched ENACT function as an enabler and accelerator of progress towards multilaterally established global targets such as the UN Decade on Restoration, the 30x30 target under the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework, and the G20 Global Initiative on Land Degradation under the UNCCD.

Nature-based Solutions key messages

IUCN supports the following key messages (from Getting the message right on nature-based solutions to climate  change), and the NbS Guidelines by the Nature-based Solutions Initiative.


1. NbS are not a substitute for the rapid phase out of fossil fuels

2. NbS must involve a wide range of ecosystems on land and in the sea, not just forests

3. NbS are implemented with the full engagement and consent of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in a way that respects their cultural and ecological rights

4. NbS should be explicitly designed to provide measurable benefits for biodiversity

IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions

IUCN Issues Brief: Ensuring effective Nature-based Solutions Opens in the same window Opens in a new window

Accelerating investment in Nature-based Climate Solutions

IUCN supports the acceleration of financing for nature-based solutions for climate change through multiple grant mechanisms, including the Global EbA Fund, the Blue Natural Capital Financing Facility, the Subnational Climate Finance initiative, and the Nature+ Accelerator Fund, which collectively represent 200 million USD in available funding for NbS. Current economic valuation research estimates that an investment of 1 dollar in climate adaptation and resilience yields 4 dollars in benefits, on average. At this 1:4 impact ratio1IUCN’s investments over the last 5 years has resulted in approximately one trillion dollars’ worth of benefits.

Investing in nature can contribute to recovery efforts by creating jobs, targeting the poorest communities, and building long-term resilience.

Mari Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnership, World Bank at the IUCN Congress in Marseille

Note

1This estimate of “investment of US$1, on average, yields US$4 in benefits” is pulled from a variety of sources, including the New Climate Economy Report (2018), Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience (2019), and Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves Interim Report (2018).