N4C Weekly Brief: May 8 – 14

FEATURED NEWS

How Carbon Markets Can Deliver to the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis [Commentary]
TIME, Fred Krupp, 13 May 

TIME publishes a commentary from Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund, discussing how critical funding is available from the private sector through carbon markets, which are one of the few tools available now to channel money to communities on the front lines of climate change. Justin Worland at TIME also reviews if the economic case for preserving nature is strong enough to generate the private sector action needed to save it. Environmental Finance carries a commentary that encourages the private sector to invest in nature-based solutions to help companies pursue ambitious climate goals.

Bloomberg reports that Microsoft has agreed to buy 3 million tons of removal credits over 15 years from reforestation company re.green to reforest large sections of Brazil. Reuters reports that Malaysia’s voluntary carbon market exchange will host an auction of its first Malaysian carbon credits in July.

Nations, Firms Pledge $2.2 Billion to Africa Clean Cooking
Bloomberg, Antony Sguazzin and Nayla Razzouk, 14 May

Bloomberg reports governments, multilateral lenders and oil and gas companies at the International Energy Agency’s Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa pledged $2.2 billion in financing to promote clean cooking in Africa and end a scourge that causes fatal respiratory disease, adds to carbon emissions and leads to deforestation. It is estimated 2.4 billion people, mainly women, still cook over and heat their homes with open fires that burn wood, charcoal, or dung, leading to 3.2 million annual premature deaths from particulate pollution exposure. Switching to clean-cooking technologies would cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 billion tons, the same amount generated by all planes and ships today. Project Syndicate carries a commentary piece from Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, and Joseph Nganga, Interim CEO of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, calling on wealthy and Global North governments to meet their commitments on climate financing and fund the transition to clean cooking across the world.

EU spending up to €48bn on nature-harming activities each year, report says
Carbon Brief, Orla Dwyer, 13 May

Carbon Brief covers a new report from WWF that finds EU countries could be spending between €34-48 billion each year on projects that can end up damaging biodiversity in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The largest proportion of these subsidies comes from the EU’s farming-subsidy programme, which accounts for almost one-third of the bloc’s total budget. Carbon Pulse reports 140 organizations have sent an open letter to the EU warning the rollback of nature restoration and corporate sustainability due diligence laws threatens climate goals and economic resilience. i newspaper carries a commentary from the CEOs of the National Trust, RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts and Woodland Trust sounding the alarm over the decline of the UK’s natural environment and noting that every UK political party is failing to tackle the crisis of nature loss.

Fossil fuels, food, and farming – investors need to look through the same lens [Commentary]
InvestmentNews, Annie Sanders, 8 May

InvestmentNews carries a commentary from the Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Green Century detailing why investors should view companies tied to significant levels of deforestation as carrying unnecessary levels of material financial risks given the rapid growth of national and subnational policies around the world to halt nature loss. Deutsche Welle releases a documentary on the connection between Germany’s largest car companies with leather imports tied to illegal deforestation in Brazil.

Scientists explore nature’s promise in combating plastic waste
Mongabay, Claire Asher, 8 May

Mongabay covers new approaches scientists are developing to create biological solutions to address the plastic pollution crisis at every stage of the material’s life cycle. Since 1950, humanity has produced more than 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. Most has ended up in landfills or the environment, where it is harmful to wildlife, ecosystem functioning and human health. Utilizing new approaches to trap, break down and transform plastic through nature-inspired solutions could provide significant benefits to maintaining healthy ecosystems, a requirement to address climate change.

SPOTLIGHT – The Bioeconomy and The G20

A new Global Stocktake authored by NatureFinance and FGV-CES, with the support of civil society organizations, illustrates that despite some overlaps and differences, all G20 members are advancing a bioeconomy strategy and practices.

This stocktake looks at challenges and opportunities, as well as highlighting emerging themes that could be the focus for further research by the G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy.

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SPOTLIGHT – Get to Know naturebase

Join naturebase for two upcoming webinar series focused on helping decision-makers and implementers find the data they need to make their NCS efforts successful! Each webinar will be hosted multiple times with limited registration so practitioners around the world can engage directly with the naturebase to receive guidance on how to use this powerful new set of tools.

Using naturebase to identify opportunities for high-integrity natural climate solutions projects

Join this webinar if you are a company, financial institution, NGO or engaged in supporting Indigenous Peoples in developing or exploring the potential to use NCS as part of your investment strategies, land management, or climate impact mitigation efforts. This webinar will demonstrate the benefit of using naturebase to deliver on these nature-based investment and sustainability strategies.
Sessions Hosted: May 21st, June 3rd, and June 4th

REGISTER

Using naturebase to inform policy and strategies for climate and natural resource management
Join this webinar if you are a policy maker or influencer seeking ways to deliver positive biodiversity and climate outcomes through interventions on land, driven by policy, plans or practical action. Learn through this webinar how to identify what your country or region can achieve through various nature-based protection, restoration, and land management pathways, identifying where to implement these solutions and what the carbon potential could be.
Sessions Hosted: May 20th, May 21st, and June 4th

REGISTER

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

SBTi releases the Terms of Reference of the major revision to the Corporate Net-Zero Standard outlining the objectives, scope, deliverables, provisional timeline, and opportunities for engagement during the standard revision process.

UNEP shares a World Environment Day practical guide designed to help get everyone involved in ecosystem restoration organized into several chapters, such as food systems, freshwater ecosystems, and human habitats.

Climate Home News calls for funding to help its reporters attend the Bonn Climate Change Conference.

World Wildlife Fund releases an episode about a piece of legislation currently pending in the US Congress that could make a big difference for global forest conservation: the FOREST Act. This bill would create new requirements and incentives for companies to ensure that the products they import into the US are not associated with illegal deforestation.

ACR covers a recent peer-reviewed study in Nature Climate Change, finding that reforestation (removals) and avoided loss (reductions) are both critical climate actions.

IUCN releases a report assessing the future environmental, economic and social impact of the production, trade and the consumption of vegetable oils.

The Nature Conservancy publishes the Nature-Based Credit Science Decoder Series, a set of explainers on current scientific best practices and gaps for carbon projects developed in seven common natural climate solutions pathways.

Restor announces that it has added a new data layer created by Meta and the World Resources Institute that uses an AI model to map global tree heights.

Wetlands International shares a policy brief outlining recommendations for opportunities for the UNFCCC to advance coastal NbS within ongoing processes and negotiations.

EFI publishes a science-policy study that sets out how forest-related biodiversity could be included in the EU Taxonomy, to help encourage sustainable investments in forests.

In collaboration with other nonprofit organizations and universities, The Nature Conservancy publishes a global evidence map of human well-being and the biodiversity co-benefits and trade-offs of natural climate solutions.

Woodwell Climate Research Center launches a new 6-year initiative, the Evolving Meta-Ecosystems (EvoME) Institute, which focuses on improving scientific and public understanding of how ecosystems are responding—and will continue to respond—to a rapidly changing climate.

CASE STUDY

N4C is compiling an index of NBS case studies, together with an interactive map, to highlight action on the ground. Each week, we will be choosing a case study to present, to help give concrete examples of work being done to bring NBS theory into practic

Valuing Blue Carbon in the Kaimana MPA

WHERE: KAIMANA, PAPUA, INDONESIA
TYPE OF NCS SOLUTION: MANAGE  

This project builds on established marine and coastal conservation work in the mangrove-rich areas of Kaimana, Papua and compliments on-going efforts to integrate blue carbon into policy and management decisions. The project hopes to show that coastal blue carbon provides a new opportunity for driving and supporting coastal ecosystem conservation within Indonesia, and for sustaining the multiple benefits these ecosystems provide.

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NUMBER OF THE WEEK – 36 MtCO2e/yr

The annual carbon dioxide emissions that could be sequestered by Malaysia if it meets its potential for reforestation by 2050.  See more details on the potential for natural climate solutions in N4C’s naturebase.

GOOD NEWS

This creative conservation initiative treats the ocean like an endangered species

Sponsoring an endangered animal has long been a way for people to contribute to the conservation of at-risk species like tigers and pandas. Now, a program is encouraging the public to sponsor parcels of endangered ocean. Last year, the tiny South Pacific nation of Niue marked its surrounding ocean—about the size of Malaysia—into 127,000 zones and declared them open for sponsorship. With a quick online purchase of about $150, anyone can chip in to protect a part of the earth’s seas. This program is the winner of Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award in the nature category.

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