Eco-friendly travel is now more important than ever as the climate keeps changing and tourism resumes in a post-pandemic world. Pollution and excess waste are causing harm to the environment, animals, and communities living in tourist hotspots, making it essential to be sustainable whenever you travel. Both casual travellers and full-time nomads can do their part to be eco-friendly as they travel the globe, and by doing so, they can ensure a sustainable future for all. 

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As the global climate deteriorates at an unprecedented pace, there comes a greater need to change how you travel to minimise your impact on the environment. By being sustainable regardless of where you go, you can ensure that you are helping the planet and future generations.

Sustainable Travel Is Part of the Solution

Sustainable travel. That’s when you take the time to think of how every aspect of your journey can be more eco-friendly so you can minimise the impacts your activities have on the environment. Doing so is more important than ever, considering that tourism accounts for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Many modes of transportation necessary for travel, like planes and cars, emit greenhouse gases that negatively impact the environment and also harm human health. 

Air pollution is a major concern, as it can affect communities around the entire world, making it more difficult for people to breathe and even increasing the risk of long-term health conditions like cancer. Further, pollution in one location can also travel to other areas of the world, making it a truly global issue. It can also negatively impact entire ecosystems, including plants and wildlife.

When you travel, it is important to be part of the solution rather than contributing to the problem. When you work to travel sustainably, you can help ensure that the places you visit on your adventures stay beautiful and accessible for local communities that inhabit them as well as fellow travellers.

Eco-Friendly Tips During Casual Travel

Whether it is for fun or business, you can take some steps to ensure your travel is as eco-friendly as possible.

It all starts by planning out your journey in advance. If you are driving, plan your route so you are not using gas unnecessarily. Before leaving, determine where you will stay, what you will eat, and the stops you want to make along the way. 

In particular, where you eat while travelling can be incredibly important. By eating locally sourced foods, you will consume delicious meals and support local farmers and businesses. What’s more, when you skip the big chain restaurants and stores, you reduce the need for trucks to travel from faraway destinations to deliver supplies to these businesses.

One way to reduce waste and minimise plastic pollution is to avoid single-use plastics. When you go to a restaurant, only order what you intend to eat so you do not need unnecessary takeout containers that will inevitably be thrown away –or bring your own reusable ones. You should also,bring a reusable water bottle and refill it along the way.

Wherever you go, follow one of the primary sustainable travel principles: leave each place the same as you found it. This is especially true when you head out into nature or the wilderness. When you go, you want the area to look as close as possible to how it was when you got there. Do not leave trash lying around or create excess waste. To leave these areas even better than how you found them, pick up any other pieces of trash that others have left behind. These are incredibly simple acts, but they can make a world of difference.

More on the topic: Explainer: What Is Ecotourism and Why It Matters

Sustainability for Full-Time Travellers

If you travel full-time as a digital nomad or live the van life, sustainability needs to be a primary goal so you can be eco-friendly wherever you go.

There are several tips to consider when travelling by van as a nomad that can help you to be efficient and sustainable. Research each new area you plan to visit before you get there. If there is room in your vehicle, bring your bike along so you can travel shorter distances without further greenhouse gas emissions once you arrive at a destination. Also, do not forget to explore on foot so you can see the sights you would otherwise not notice from a vehicle. If you need inspiration, check out the local natural landmarks and historical sites and work on a nearby park bench. 

As you work, try to use energy-efficient laptops and smartphones. You can often identify them by the Energy Star label. Keep your devices charged using solar energy, if possible. Further, whenever possible, do not use an electronic device at all, but instead, write down your ideas on a dry-erase board so you can use it repeatedly. 

It can be tempting to continue travelling from place to place but unless you need to be somewhere, remember there is no hurry. When you find a new area to explore, think about how you can stay longer and move less to reduce your fuel consumption. Research campsites or parking areas that are close to the locations you want to visit so you do not have to drive to them. Reduce your waste by using reusable grocery bags and storing food in reusable containers, and do not forget to properly dispose of waste every chance you get.

You might also like: How to Live a More Sustainable Life

Conclusion

It is crucial to plan out your travel so you can venture from place to place as sustainably as possible. It’s important for human health, as well as the health of the planet. Do what is right today, and you will set up a promising future for all.

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This article was originally published on October 30, 2023

The post Eco-Friendly Travel: Exploring Sustainable Tourism appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including an attribution study linking climate change to central Europe’s deadly floods and California’s latest lawsuit against Big Oil.

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1. ‘Heaviest Rain Ever’ That Triggered Deadly Floods in Central Europe Made Twice As Likely By Climate Change, Study Finds

The exceptionally heavy downpours that triggered deadly floods in Central Europe earlier this month, affecting two million people, was made at least twice as likely by human-made climate change, a new attribution report has revealed.

Storm Boris unleashed unprecedented rains throughout the region, causing rivers and reservoirs to swell to alarming levels. All affected countries – Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and northern Italy – experienced flooding and power cuts. Tens of thousands were evacuated and at least 24 were killed.

The four-day downpours were made at least twice as likely and 7% heavier due to human-made climate change, World Weather Attribution (WWA), an academic collaboration studying extreme event attribution, said on Wednesday. The group’s rapid attribution study revealed that the amount of rain that fell between September 12-16 was the heaviest ever recorded across Central Europe, and covered an area even greater than previous historical floods recorded in 1997 and 2002.

WWA warned that the continuous burning of fossil fuels will further increase the likelihood and intensity of devastating storms. In a 2C-warmer world, an event like Storm Boris would be 5% more intense and 50% more frequent, the 24 researchers involved in the study warned.

Read more here.

2. California Sues ExxonMobil Over ‘Decades-Long’ Deceiving Plastic Recyclability Campaign

Filed by the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta in the San Francisco County Superior Court, the first-of-its-kind lawsuit seeks to hold the American multinational accountable for its active contribution to plastic pollution, one of the biggest environmental threats of our lifetime.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said in a statement issued on Monday.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses ExxonMobil, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, of deceiving Californians for five decades about the real environmental impact of its plastic products. Through “misleading public statements” and “slick marketing,” the company allegedly tricked consumers into thinking that all of its products are recyclable, despite knowing that this option is neither technically nor economically viable for “the vast majority” of its products.

Read more here.

3. COP29 Host Azerbaijan’s Climate Action ‘Critically Insufficient’ to Meet Paris Goal, Assessment Reveals

Azerbaijan, the country selected to host the year’s most important climate summit, is “moving backward” on climate action, an assessment of its climate policies revealed.

Conducted by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent scientific project monitoring governments emissions reduction plans, the analysis concluded that the country’s policies and targets are “far from consistent” with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century.

To avoid overshooting the Paris goal completely, the world would need to reduce emissions by 43% compared with levels in 2019. And yet, according to CAT, Azerbaijan’s greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by 20% to 2030.

In its latest Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submission, the country pledged to achieve a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century compared to 1990 levels. However, it dropped a 2030 target that was included in its predecessor.

“Overall, we rate Azerbaijan’s climate action as ‘Critically insufficient’,” the assessment concluded. “Along with setting a more stringent climate target, Azerbaijan needs to significantly increase the ambition of its climate policies to reverse the present rapid growth in emissions and set its emissions on a firm downward trajectory.”

Read more here.

4. World Leaders Commit to ‘Inclusive, Networked Multilateralism’ As They Adopt UN Pact For Future

The United Nations General Assembly on Sunday adopted a blueprint to bring the world’s increasingly divided nations together to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.

The 42-page “Pact for the Future” covers a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. It also includes two annexes: a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations.

“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as he thanked world leaders and diplomats for unlocking “the door” to a better future. “Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action.”

Among the 56 actions and commitments that countries pledged to achieve are some addressing the climate crisis, such as accelerating efforts to meet obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. The signatories also reaffirmed the COP28 deal – which calls on nations to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner to achieve net-zero by 2050” and to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 – and their commitment to the conservation targets set in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Read more here.

5. Earth in ‘Critical Condition’ As Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries Breached

According to the assessment, the first yearly scheduled report on the wellbeing of Earth systems, six boundaries have already been transgressed: climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, and the introduction of novel entities. Only three boundaries – atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and ocean acidification – remain within the safe operating space, though the latter is also quickly approaching the threshold.

“For the first time Patient Earth goes through a full Health Check. The verdict is clear – the patient is in critical condition,” Rockström said in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).

First published in 2009, the planetary boundaries framework defines and quantifies the limits within which human activities can safely operate without causing irreversible environmental changes. It does so by identifying several critical Earth system processes and defining thresholds – or boundaries – that should not be exceeded to maintain a stable, sustainable, and habitable planet. Transgressing them heightens risks of breaching critical tipping points that would bring about irreversible shifts to the planet, threatening humanity and life as we know it.

Read more here.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for September 23-27, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

“Six out of nine [Planetary Boundaries] processes have breached the safe levels, with all six showing trends of increasing pressure in all control variables, suggesting further boundary transgression in the near future,” the first planetary health check concluded.

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The planet is in “critical condition,” scientists concluded after a planet health check revealed that six out of nine planetary boundaries have been breached.

According to the assessment, the first yearly scheduled report on the wellbeing of Earth systems, six boundaries have already been transgressed: climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, and the introduction of novel entities. Only three boundaries – atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and ocean acidification – remain within the safe operating space, though the latter is also quickly approaching the threshold.

“For the first time Patient Earth goes through a full Health Check. The verdict is clear – the patient is in critical condition,” Rockström said in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).

First published in 2009, the planetary boundaries framework defines and quantifies the limits within which human activities can safely operate without causing irreversible environmental changes. It does so by identifying nine critical Earth system processes and defining thresholds – or boundaries – that should not be exceeded to maintain a stable, sustainable, and habitable planet. Transgressing them heightens risks of breaching critical tipping points that would bring about irreversible shifts to the planet, threatening humanity and life as we know it.

“Boundaries are set to avoid tipping points, to have a high chance to keep the planet in state as close as possible to the Holocene, that allows it to maintain its resilience, stability, and life support capabilities. Go beyond and we enter a danger zone… the uncertainty range of science,” Johan Rockström, director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and lead author of the planetary boundaries framework, told Earth.Org in April. 

According to the report, humanity has five years to reverse planetary boundary trends, with 50% cuts in climate emissions required by decade’s end.

‘Shocking’ Trends

Early understanding of the anthropogenic impacts of human activities on the planet did not lead to the fundamental changes our society needed at the time to prevent the situation from worsening further. Thanks to our inaction in recent decades, we now find ourselves in completely uncharted territory. 

“Humanity has opened the gates to hell,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the UN General Assembly in 2023, warning that “humanity’s fate is hanging in the balance.”

The past nine years have been the hottest on record, with 2023 topping the ranking and 2024 on track to be even hotter.

What’s even more worrisome is that climate scientists are struggling to understand or explain these trends, which climate scientist Zeke Hausfather last year famously described as “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” 

“We had seen El Niño conditions before, so we expected higher surface temperatures [last year] because the Pacific ocean releases heat. But what happened in 2023 was nothing close to 2016, the second-warmest year on record. It was beyond anything we expected and no climate models can reproduce what happened. And then 2024 starts, and it gets even warmer,” Rockström told Earth.Org. “We cannot explain these [trends] yet and it makes scientists that work on Earth resilience like myself very nervous.”

Recent data also show a relentless rise in global sea temperatures, which have doubled since the 1960s.

“There has always been the assumption that the ocean can cope with this, that the ocean is able to absorb this heat in a predictable, linear way, without causing surprise or any sudden abrupt changes. Up until 2023. Because suddenly, temperatures [went] off the charts, and that’s what is so shocking,” the Swedish scientist remarked.

Read the full interview: Toward a New Global Approach to Safeguard Planet Earth: An Interview With Johan Rockström

The post Earth in ‘Critical Condition’ As Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries Breached appeared first on Earth.Org.

World Environment Health Day, which every year falls on September 26, is a day to reflect on the connection between environmental and human health and to encourage sustainable living practices.

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Earth is the only place with perfect conditions for human existence. Nature supplies absolutely everything for our physical and mental well-being. With the human population increasing at an unprecedented rate over the past century, nature exploitation has also reached unsustainable levels, so high that many natural resources and living creatures are now on the verge of complete extinction.

Sustainable development has not always been a priority and as a result, we live in polluted or even contaminated environment that harms our own health. Many health problems and deaths around the world as a consequence of unhealthy environments could be preventable or drastically reduced through efforts put into better environmental quality. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we understand and take action to protect our environmental health. 

Environmental Health Matters

We live in a world with quite unlimited options for living. Naturally, some people have more options in deciding where to live than others. The leading criteria for the best places to live usually include affordability, job opportunities, home value, proximity to family and friends, safety, good schools, and climate and weather conditions. However, it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that people started to realise how air pollution could cause a dent in the atmosphere. Basically, that was the beginning of an academic discipline created to try to understand the environmental threats mostly caused by human activities and their consequences on the environment and also to find a way to reduce the negative impact on nature and maintain the Earth in the best possible condition for the generations to come. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines public health as “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.” Public health thus involves the protection of the health and well-being of the whole population. These populations can be represented by smaller local neighbourhoods, larger regions, or even the entire world. 

The quality of the environment we live in is affecting us every day without us even realising it. The food we eat, the place we live in, and the community we interact with on daily basis all affect our physical and mental well-being. This is a part of a broad area of study called ‘Environmental Health’, a discipline that – as the name suggests – speaks for every aspect of the environment that can influence our health. 

6 Sources Responsible For Environmental Health Issue

1. Air Pollution

Pollutants are a mixture of natural and manmade elements, molecules, and particles with an undesired effect on human health. Breathing air polluted by nearby factories or heavy traffic affects the lungs and heart, causing asthma and even increasing the risk of heart attack or stroke. According to World Health Organization (WHO), 600,000 children die every year from infections of the respiratory system caused by air pollution. 9 out of 10 people breathe polluted air which results in almost 9 million deaths annually. 

You might also like: Air Pollution: Have We Reached the Point of No Return?

2. Water Contamination

Access to clean water is a common human right but unfortunately, it is still a privilege for many. 780 million people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and a stunning 2.5 billion people, equivalent to almost one-third of the world’s population, do not have access to acceptable sanitation services as simple as bathrooms. Over 2,000 children die daily due to diseases linked to non-adequate water and sanitation.

3. Toxic Substances and Hazardous Waste

Toxic substances can be found in discarded materials with properties that can cause harm to the environment and human health, such as heavy metals or chemicals. Such waste is often stored in landfills or simply thrown away as rubbishcontaminating the environment. Man-made production of chemicals has increased drastically between 1930 and 2000, from one million to approximately 400 million tons a year and the trend shows no sign of slowing down. An average human absorbs around 300 man-made chemicals and according to WHO, exposure to them leads to more than 1.6 million deaths annually.

4. Climate Change and Natural Disaster

Climate change is the biggest single human health threat of the 21st century. Increasing global temperature and changes in rain patterns, which result in extreme weather events such as cyclones, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfire have catastrophic effects on entire communities and infrastructure, in many cases resulting in loss of lives. A very well-remembered earthquake in Haiti in 2010, which lasted just about 30 seconds, cost more than 160,000 lives, with many more injured or affected.

5. Infrastructure Issues

Infrastructure represents one of the main pillars of high-quality life. Healthcare centres and hospitals should be integrated into the wider community. Yet, local, state, and federal governments must allocate more resources in order to overcome infrastructure problems and must make this a priority. 

Better infrastructure naturally comes with better access to health care. As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director–General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said: “It is completely unacceptable that half the world still lacks coverage for the most essential health services.” 

The Danger of An Unhealthy Environment

As Anne Stauffer, director for Strategy and Campaigns of the European not-profit Health and Environmental Alliance (HEAL) rightly says: “There is not that much of a difference between 2012 and 2020, in fact, the urgency to tackle environmental pollution and climate change has only increased.” She also highlights that “one root cause of the problem is that our whole way of production, consumption and way of life is based on fossil fuels.”

A 2019 report by the European Environment Agency found that heatwaves are the deadliest type of extreme weather in Europe. It also reveals that, under current global warming scenario, the death toll due to heatwaves could be higher than 130,000 per year. Other statistics suggest that 23% of all deaths (26% of deaths of children aged 0-5) are utterly preventable environmental health problems. 

For more on the topic, check out our 3-part heat series.

What Can We Do to Enhance Environmental Health?

• Afforestation: More plants and trees to help absorb carbon dioxide and reduce its content in the atmosphere, helps build new ecosystems, helps with the wood demand 
• Reduce the Use of Plastics: Plastic waste makes up 80% of all marine pollution. Researchers worry that by 2050, plastic might even outweigh all fish in the sea.
• Practice Sustainable or Regenerative Agriculture: Regenerative agriculture and other methods of sustainable farming help cut emissions and boost soil health. Agriculture is responsible for 80% of the soil degradation in Europe alone. With unhealthy soils, there will be not enough food of sufficient quality for the increasing population. 
• Electric Cars: Electric cars are not only a great alternative to gasoline-powered cars but they can also reduce a car’s carbon footprint by up to 70%. Additionally, these types of vehicles do not produce the same exhaust noise level as gasoline cars, which can help in very populated areas where noise pollution is a concern already.
• Rainwater Collection: Harvesting rainwater helps manage stormwater runoff and prevents erosion, flooding, and poor water quality in water bodies. Using rainwater as a source for irrigation helps replenish groundwater supplies. 
• Energy Saving: Simple switching to energy-saving bulbs can reduce electricity used in homes anywhere between 25-80%. Adopting this and other energy-saving practices, significantly decreases our reliance on fossil fuels, which still represent the major source of energy around the world
• Reducing Industrial Emissions and Waste: Earth will become uninhabitable if fossil fuel emissions do not decrease quickly. The majority of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years has originated from human activities. 

You might also like: How to Lower Your Carbon Footprint Through An Eco-Friendly Home Audit

Final Thoughts

Environmental health has never been more important. All we need to do is to care about our planet. Many might feel too little to stop the climate change or environmental tragedies, but there are numerous ways we can help and be part of this change. To live longer and to enhance the quality of people’s life, supporting a healthy environment is essential.

This article was first published on November 29, 2022

The post Why We Should Care About Environmental Health appeared first on Earth.Org.

“With on-site storage solutions, air-conditioning can help keep people cool in a world that is getting warmer, while reducing harmful impact on the environment,” writes Yaron Ben Nun.

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There was not supposed to be air-conditioning in the athletes’ quarters at this summer’s Olympics in Paris. But despite proclaiming them “the greenest games in Olympic history,” Olympic and French officials eventually buckled under pressure, as Team USA, along with numerous others including teams from Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada, brought their own AC units along to fight the summer heat. Ultimately, about 2,500 AC units cooled the residences where athletes stayed, as teams apparently didn’t trust Paris’ green solution, a geothermal cooling system that was supposed to lower indoor temperatures by about 10F (5.6C). 

The Olympic air conditioning “debacle,” as some pundits termed it, contains numerous lessons – but the most important is that most humans will not give up being comfortable in order to promote sustainability. In fact, as the world is heating up, demand for energy to power air conditioning is expected to double by 2050, contributing significantly to carbon emissions and fueling the cycle of climate change.  

Much of that demand will be in factories, office buildings, hotels, academic institutions, and other commercial and industrial-scale facilities that cater to large numbers of people. Already in the US, commercial buildings are responsible for 75% of electricity use – and nearly half of that is used for HVAC. In addition to increasing carbon emissions, AC use taxes strained electric grids and results in high power bills in many areas. Key to addressing these challenges from the property consumption side are on-site energy storage solutions. These solutions will still provide people with the cooling power they crave, but in a much greener, and more affordable manner.

Even as more renewable energy comes online, electric grids across the country are under increased strain to keep up with the growing power demand for AC systems. This is mainly due to spiking demand for electricity in later afternoon to evening hours when solar energy – the most common renewable source in many states like California – is less available. 

That means that at these peak times, grids rely heavily on energy made from fossil fuels; this energy is both more carbon-intensive and more expensive. This has led to more frequent brown-outs and black-outs, as well as efforts to incentivize customers, including commercial buildings, to reduce power use during these peak demand hours, which are rapidly growing more expensive.

For example, peak prices in California are expected to rise by 50% by 2044, while non-peak rates could fall by 50%. But commercial properties like hotels and office buildings cannot simply shut off their air-conditioning; and factories cannot just pause their production lines. While many buildings implement energy efficiency measures, at least to some extent, it’s usually not sufficient –  and as a consequence they face reciprocal costs that are much higher than necessary. Demonstrating this, data from the US Energy Information Administration shows that power costs for commercial buildings have risen by over 20% between mid-2019 and mid-2024.

An effective and practical way to take advantage of the hours with lower costs for power, and when that power comes from renewable sources is to install energy storage systems. Popular options to date include battery and thermal energy storage systems, which are based on heating or cooling a substance like water. Energy storage systems can be charged when the power from the grid is cheaper and greener, then discharge stored energy to power air conditioning and other needs during the peak hours when electricity from the grid is more expensive and made from polluting fossil fuels. 

For commercial buildings especially, thermal solutions can be a real game-changer; as lithium-ion batteries pose fire safety and capacity concerns. Thermal solutions are growing smaller in size, and more efficient, and are increasingly powered by smart software, autonomously charging and discharging throughout the day according to both the ever-changing cost and carbon intensity of the power from the grid. That time-shift of electricity-use enabled by these systems significantly reduces electricity costs – and reduces the strain on the grid, as well as overall carbon emissions.

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provides subsidies for up to 30% of up-front installation costs for commercial, academic, and other users who install such systems. In addition, the energy market allows energy storage system owners to earn compensation by helping the grid reduce peak loads, enhancing the return on investment, along with taking advantage of local incentives. To save even more money, buildings can utilize programs like energy storage as a service, in which an external vendor installs and maintains storage systems.

In addition to saving on energy bills, installing on-site storage systems allows buildings to take steps toward zero-emissions goals and carbon taxes that some jurisdictions plan to impose in the coming years.

As the recent Olympics showed, people cannot live without air conditioning. But we don’t need to; with on-site storage solutions, air-conditioning can help keep people cool in a world that is getting warmer, while reducing harmful impact on the environment.

You might also like: Climate Change Crashed the Paris Olympics. Is This It For the Games?

The post In a Warming World Hooked on AC, Commercial Buildings Should Look to Energy Storage  appeared first on Earth.Org.

The UN Pact For Future offers a blueprint to tackle 21st-century challenges – from conflicts and environmental threats to financing development. It also includes two annexes towards a responsible and sustainable digital future and the protection of future generations.

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The United Nations General Assembly on Sunday adopted a blueprint to bring the world’s increasingly divided nations together to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.

The 42-page “Pact for the Future” covers a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. It also includes two annexes: a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations.

“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres as he thanked world leaders and diplomats for unlocking “the door” to a better future. “Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action.”

Among the 56 actions and commitments that countries pledged to achieve are some addressing the climate crisis, such as accelerating efforts to meet obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. The signatories also reaffirmed the COP28 deal – which calls on nations to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner to achieve net-zero by 2050” and to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 – and their commitment to the conservation targets set in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The pact also addresses climate finance, with countries “recognizing” the importance of adaptation finance and committing to “further operationalize and capitalize” new funding arrangements for the Loss and Damage Fund, which was formally adopted at COP27 in 2022. Contributions to the fund at last year’s UN climate summit in Dubai reached just over $700 million, less than 0.2% of the economic and non-economic losses developing countries face every year from global warming.

More on the topic: Explainer: What Is ‘Loss and Damage’ Compensation?

COP29 host Azerbaijan last week announced its plans to launch two climate finance initiatives during the summit, which will take place in the capital Baku in November. However, there is little indication that countries will be able to agree on a new global climate fundraising goal, which a recent UN report says needs to reach at least $500 billion per year. 

The “game-changing” pact – as Guterres described it – was adopted despite a last-minute, isolated sabotage attempt on the grounds that it represented western interests. Russia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Vershinin, introduced an amendment emphasizing the “principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states,” a move backed by Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Nicaragua, Sudan and Syria. The amendment was overwhelmingly dismissed and the pact was subsequently adopted  was adopted by 143 votes in favour to 7 against and 15 abstentions.

“Petrostates tried to derail the Pact for the Future but… transitioning away from fossil fuel & tripling renewables still stands,” said Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy & Campaigns at 350.org. “As countries prepare to unveil their emissions targets, leaders have one job to do: deliver 1.5-aligned climate goals.”

But according to 350.org, “the real will be the delivery” of the commitments. Indeed, the pact and its annexes are non-binding, raising concerns about their implementation.

Featured image: Xabi Oregi/Pexels.

The post World Leaders Commit to ‘Inclusive, Networked Multilateralism’ As They Adopt UN Pact For Future appeared first on Earth.Org.

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including deadly floods in central and eastern Europe and a groundbreaking move to ban fossil fuel advertising in The Hague.

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1. Storm Boris: Record-Breaking Rainfall Floods Central Europe After Continent’s Hottest Summer on Record

The flooding events are among the worst to affect Central Europe in modern history. They follow Europe’s hottest summer on record and a hot start to September in the region as well as several consecutive months of exceptional warmth in the Mediterranean Sea.

They affected parts of Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Italy. They were triggered by Storm Boris, which unleashed unprecedented rains throughout the region. Many European rivers have swelled to alarming levels, including the Danube.

A hotter atmosphere, driven by human-made climate change, can lead to more intense rainfall. As the sea surface warms, so does the air above it, causing water to be carried up to high altitudes to form clouds, while leaving a low pressure zone beneath causing more air to rush in. As these systems build up, thunderstorms are formed, and if there are no strong winds to slow it down, they can become powerful storms.

According to London-based meteorologist Scott Duncan, Boris has been drawing cold air from the Antarctic before mixing with a moisture drawn up from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which is also much hotter than usual. The plunge of cold trapped the storm between the moisture to the west and east, slowing it down and fueling it.

Days before the events unleashed, weather models flagged the potential of a “massive rainfall event” and “catastrophic flooding,” prompting scientists to raise the alarm.

“A massive rainfall event is looking increasingly likely for parts of central Europe over the next few days. The reason: a slow-moving cut off upper low fueled by anomalously warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. If anything near that verifies, catastrophic flooding is likely,” scientist Nahel Belgherze wrote on X last Wednesday.

Read more here.

2. No Mention of Fossil Fuel Phaseout in COP29 Presidency’s Agenda

Azerbaijan has unveiled a list of priorities for the upcoming climate summit, which included global energy storage, electric grids, and climate finance but left out the production and consumption of planet-warming fossil fuels.

In a letter to Parties and Constituencies published Tuesday, the COP29 Presidency outlined a series of voluntary initiatives and outcomes on its Action Agenda, laying out in full the series of pledges and declarations that it will use to supplement the negotiated COP agenda and accelerate climate action.

Notably, the Action Agenda did not include any mentions of phasing out planet-warming fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, and oil. This is despite the COP28 deal’s unprecedented call to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner to achieve net-zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”

The appointment of Azerbaijan, a highly fossil fuel-dependent state and the oldest oil-producing region in the world, as the COP29 host has reignited debates over the role of fossil fuels in the UN summit as it marked the third petrostate in a row to host the talks after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year and Egypt in 2022. 

Read more here.

3. The Hague Becomes First City in the World to Outlaw Fossil Fuel Advertising, Months After UN-Chief Call to Stop Fueling Disinformation

The Dutch city of The Hague passed a groundbreaking law on Thursday to ban advertisements promoting fossil fuel products and services, the first city in the world to do so.

Effective from January 1, 2025, the new ban applies to fossil fuel products and high-carbon services such as cruise ships and air travel. The legislation is a crucial step in the city’s transition to net zero, which it aims to reach by 2030.

“The Hague wants to be climate neutral by 2030. Then it is not appropriate to allow advertising for products from the fossil industry,” said Leonie Gerritsen, a member of the city council for the Party for the Animals and one of the backers of the new local law.

For many, the ban will have repercussions beyond the local level and could act as a potential catalyst for similar actions worldwide.

The move comes months after UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on countries to ban fossil fuel advertising in the same way they restricted tobacco.

“Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action – with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns. They have been aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men fuelling the madness,” Guterres said in a speech in June to mark World Environment Day.

Read more here.

4. Cities, States Leaders Call on World Leaders to Ban Fossil Fuels Ahead of UN Summit

The time has come for world leaders to listen to the voices of cities and states at the forefront of climate action and work alongside them to halt the expansion of fossil fuels, according to a letter signed by dozens of city and state leaders and addressed to UN heads of state.

The call comes ahead of the United Nation’s Summit of the Future, which is set to kick off on Sunday in New York, and the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. World leaders at the summit are set to adopt the Pact for the Future, an intergovernmental blueprint for multilateral governance in an age of crisis.

“As you meet for the General Assembly and Summit of the Future, we as leaders of States and Cities, urge you to transition your countries away from fossil fuels,” the letter, signed by 14 mayors, governors, and subnational leaders across five continents, read. Together, they represent more than 40 million people. The signatories hope their call will add pressure on national leaders to turn their positive words about transitioning away from fossil fuels – a pledge they made at last year’s COP28 –  into concrete action.

Home to 56% of the global population, cities are responsible for 70% of global primary energy consumption and 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They are also at the forefront of climate change, vulnerable to water-related hazards such as floods, droughts, sea level rise, and storm events as well as extreme heat. But as their climate vulnerability grows, so do their efforts in mitigating and adapting to a warming planet.

Read more here.

The post Week in Review: Top Climate News for September 16-20, 2024 appeared first on Earth.Org.

A little under 3,000 climate litigation cases seeking to hold governments and corporations accountable for their actions have been filed around the world since 1986. The past decade has seen an unprecedented surge in such cases and dozens of landmark victories around the world. But what exactly is climate litigation, how powerful of an instrument is it really in the fight against climate change, and where is it heading?

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Climate change litigation cases seeking to hold governments and corporations accountable for their actions are on the rise worldwide, as suggested in a recent Gratham Institute report.

2023, the hottest year in our planet’s history, was an important year for climate change litigation globally, with national and international courts ruling and advising on fundamental climate matters. Landmark cases brought forward by people from all walks of life have paved the way for others to come forward. They have also proven that citizen action can succeed in holding businesses and governments accountable for their actions.

In this article, Earth.Org looks at what climate litigation is and how it has evolved and grown in the past five decades. It also spotlights key cases that shook the world and shaped this emerging legal field.

What Is Climate Litigation?

Individuals of all ages, environmental groups, and affected communities have been increasingly seeking legal avenues to hold government and corporations accountable for their contribution to climate change and inaction, with rather positive results.

In the past decade, climate litigation has consolidated as a popular strategy in tackling the ongoing climate crisis – or, as the United Nations Environment Programme puts it, as “a frontier solution to change the dynamics of the fight against climate change.” It has been described as an “attempt to control, order or influence the behaviour of others in relation to climate governance,” and it has been used by governments, private actors, civil society and individuals locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

The Global Climate Change Litigation database is the most comprehensive database on the matter. Set up in 2011, it is regularly updated by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, an affiliated center of the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University.

As of September 17, 2024, the database contained 2,796 cases – 1,850 filed in the US and 946 in the rest of the world. 70% of these cases have been filed in the past decade alone (2015-2024), following the adoption of the landmark Paris Agreement. It also includes cases brought before international or regional courts or tribunals.

At present, the database features cases from over 55 countries – with the US, the UK, Brazil, and Germany leading the way. Little over 200 cases have been recorded in the Global South, with Brazil accounting for 88 of them.

The database classifies cases filed around the world – except in the US – as (1) lawsuits against governments (including those challenging environmental assessment and permitting, human rights violations and environmental crimes) and (2) lawsuits against corporations and individuals.

It also keeps track of requests for advisory opinions submitted to national and international courts. Advisory opinions are non-legally-binding advises issued by a court regarding the constitutionality or interpretation of a specific law.

Meanwhile, cases filed in the US are organized by type of claim, such as (1) federal statutory claims (such as those challenging the National Environmental policy Act and the Endangered Species Act); (2) constitutional claims; (3) state law claims; (4) common law claims; and (5) public trust claims. It also lists cases concerning the regulation, marketing, and commercialization of carbon offsets and credits; trade agreements; and climate adaptation.

Around 5% of all cases have been filed before international or regional courts, human rights tribunals and authorities, with nearly half of the total (44 cases as of September 2024) filed before the Courts of Justice of the European Union.

Recent Trends and Key Cases

The aforementioned report by the Gratham Research Institute, published earlier this year, identified a “consolidation and concentration of strategic litigation efforts” around the world. At least 230 new cases were filed globally, with countries such as Panama and Portugal seeing their first-ever climate lawsuits.

To better understand the drivers of litigation, the Institute developed a typology of the types of behaviour that cases seek to discourage or incentivise.

Of the 233 cases documented last year, 97 (nearly 42%) were classified as “integrating climate consideration cases,” i.e. “cases that seek to integrate climate considerations, standards, or principles into a given decision or sectoral policy, with the dual goal of stopping specific harmful policies and projects, and mainstreaming climate concerns in policymaking.”

47 cases filed last year concerned “climate-washing,” meaning they challenged “inaccurate government or corporate narratives regarding contributions to the transition to a low-carbon future.” The report noted that more than 140 such cases have been filed to date worldwide, particularly in the last few years. Targets of these cases include polluting companies such as airlines, major fossil fuel companies as well as financial institutions over misleading claims to sell their financial products and services.

Among the highest-profile and most frequently discussed cases are what the Gratham Research Institute describes as “government framework cases.” These are lawsuits “that challenge the ambition or implementation of climate targets and policies affecting the whole of a country’s economy and society.”

More than 110 such cases have been filed around the world since the Paris Agreement was passed in 2015, with 15 new filed last year. They target government’s policy responses to the climate crisis, often in relation to the Paris accord, as well as the enforcement of climate protection measures to meet environmental targets. Plaintiffs often build their case on the basis that specific climate goals or protection measures are in violation of basic human rights and increase their vulnerabilities to climate change impacts.

Another way of holding governments and corporations accountable is to challenge their “failure to adapt” to climate change, i.e. “to take climate risk into account.” 64 such cases were filed since 2015, mostly at US and Australian courts.

According to a 2023 report by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), adaptation cases are still limited. Indeed, besides having to provide evidence of failure to address past and current climate change impacts – a prerequisite for cases about mitigation – adaptation lawsuits must also account for projections of future impacts.

The report also identified five new cases concerning the “polluter pays” principle – the idea that the costs of polluting activities should be borne by the party who caused it, rather than the individual or community who suffer from the consequences of pollution. These cases typically seek “monetary damages from defendants based on an alleged contribution to harmful impacts of climate change.” Of the 34 such cases filed since 2015, mostly in the US, the majority remain open.

More on the topic: Explainer: What Is the Polluter Pays Principle and How Can It Be Used in Climate Policy?

It is important to note than not all climate litigation cases are necessarily supportive of climate action. In some cases, corporations may file lawsuits to obstruct or hinder climate policies that affect their operations.

According to the Gratham Research Institute report, nearly 50 of all climate litigation cases filed in 2023 were not aligned with climate targets. These involved disputes over the incorporation of climate risk into financial decision-making and “just transition cases” challenging “the distributional impacts of climate policy or the processes by which policies were developed, normally on human rights grounds.” Strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP) have also become a common tool to censor, intimidate, or silence critics by burdening them with costly lawsuits, often on grounds that the critiques are defamatory. Journalists, media outlets, and human rights defenders are the main targets of such lawsuits.

In May, the European Union introduced new rules to combat the use of SLAPPs, allowing those targeted by these lawsuits to request a case dismissal early as manifestly unfounded. Those who have brought the legal challenge forward also risk having to bear the costs of the proceedings as well as potential penalties.

Plaintiffs and Defendants

A look at recent climate litigation cases uncovers a growing effort by civil society actors to use the courts to raise awareness about climate action and hold powerful polluters accountable. Individuals and NGOs are beyond most climate cases and about 70% of all cases filed in 2023.

Young people have also increasingly been at the forefront of climate litigation. Many of them have scored historic victories, strengthening youth climate movements worldwide and inspiring fellow activists to follow suit.

Overall, young people often demonstrate a more profound understanding of climate change compared to adults and older generations. According to a InterClimate Network survey published in 2021, more than 8 in 10 young people are concerned about climate change and think it is already having a negative effect on people’s lives. Three-quarters of those surveyed also said they believe the climate crisis will affect their life in the future.

Meanwhile, a 2021 Lancet survey of 10,000 people aged 16-25 across ten countries revealed that more than 50% experienced emotions related to climate anxiety. The study identified dissatisfaction with government responses to the climate crisis as a factor driving anxiety and feelings of betrayal among young people.

For many, these feelings have translated into action campaigns, whether it is through peaceful protests and public disruption campaigns or through the courts. Global climate movements such as Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future have brought the topic into the mainstream in recent years, allowing a new generation of young climate leaders – often nicknamed “the climate generation” – to push for change and educate the rest of the world about climate change.

“The climate crisis won’t be solved by any one country doing particularly well, but it won’t be solved if even one country doesn’t get on board,” Hyunjung Yoon, a young South Korean activist, told Earth.Org in September. “Young climate activists around the world are building their own movements in different environments, but I believe we are in this together.”

Yoon is one of 19 young plaintiffs who recently scored a landmark win at South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that the country’s climate targets are unconstitutional.

Governments, companies, and trade associations also file climate cases. The report suggests that “many but by no means all” cases filed by the latter two are not aligned with climate action. These three actors are also the main defendants in climate litigation, with governments historically targeted by the majority of cases. In 2023, over 70% of all cases involved government actors among the defendants compared to 26% involving companies, according to the report.

As some of the aforementioned cases show, companies across different sectors are increasingly the target of climate lawsuits, notably since the enactment of the Paris Agreement. Targeted industries include fossil fuels, airlines, food and beverage, e-commerce, and financial services. Of all cases filed last year, the majority involved companies dealing with fossil fuel exploration, production, and transportation, closely followed by transport, freight and storage companies and business services. Retail, agriculture, and fashion companies were also targeted, albeit in smaller numbers.

Impact

Courtrooms around the world have become a key battleground in the public debate over climate change, and recent verdicts have sent an unequivocal message to the world – that climate action is a legal duty.

In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the most authoritative scientific body on climate change – recognized that climate litigation “has influenced the outcome and ambition of climate governance,” adding that its impact is “promising.”

Recent research has demonstrated that the impact of climate litigation extends beyond the parties involved and also affects public opinion and future litigation. Considerable media attention that environmental litigation generates can also influence how climate policy is perceived.

As some lawyers put it: “Whilst environmental related litigation is both complex and costly, it is not just the outcome that is important. The activism and attention that environmental litigation generates can be just as (if not more) significant as a court judgment for ‘win’ or ‘lose’.”

In recent years, there has been a notable surge in the prevalence of climate change litigation with strategic intent. These cases are strategically designed to push for more ambitious climate-related objectives. They seek to impact policies, uphold standards, question the allocation of public resources, and scrutinize the reliability and precision of disclosures related to climate matters. Through these legal actions, stakeholders aim to drive systemic change, compel governments and institutions to uphold higher environmental standards, and ensure transparency and accountability in climate-related decision-making processes.

Climate litigation has successfully challenged governments’ climate targets and agendas as well as their authorization of high-emitting projects, setting important precedents for climate action and emissions reduction. The landmark “Urgenda” case in 2019, which saw the Netherlands’ top court ordering the Dutch government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020 compared with 1990 levels, made global headlines and has had ripple effects around the world.

Polluting companies are also increasingly being held accountable for their actions and ordered to compensate for the damage they cause. These cases also carry serious reputational and supply chain risks.

No matter the outcome, climate litigation plays a crucial role in shaping the discourse around climate change, holding key actors accountable, and advancing the global agenda for sustainable and responsible environmental practices.

The post Explainer: Climate Litigation – Trends and Impact appeared first on Earth.Org.

“Through our actions we are sending clear signals to markets that fossil fuels are not welcome,” 14 leaders of states, regions and cities from around the globe wrote in a letter to UN heads of state ahead of a key climate summit in New York later this week.

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The time has come for world leaders to listen to the voices of cities and states at the forefront of climate action and work alongside them to halt the expansion of fossil fuels, according to a letter signed by dozens of city and state leaders and addressed to UN heads of state.

The call comes ahead of the United Nation’s Summit of the Future, which is set to kick off on Sunday in New York, and the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. World leaders at the summit are set to adopt the Pact for the Future, an intergovernmental blueprint for multilateral governance in an age of crisis.

“As you meet for the General Assembly and Summit of the Future, we as leaders of States and Cities, urge you to transition your countries away from fossil fuels,” the letter, signed by 14 mayors, governors, and subnational leaders across five continents, read. Together, they represent more than 40 million people. The signatories hope their call will add pressure on national leaders to turn their positive words about transitioning away from fossil fuels – a pledge they made at last year’s COP28 –  into concrete action.

Home to 56% of the global population, cities are responsible for 70% of global primary energy consumption and 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They are also at the forefront of climate change, vulnerable to water-related hazards such as floods, droughts, sea level rise, and storm events as well as extreme heat. But as their climate vulnerability grows, so do their efforts in mitigating and adapting to a warming planet.

“Mayors and governors are making huge strides in improving building energy efficiency – from homes to offices and schools – electrifying bus fleets, scaling up renewable energy, setting up clean energy utilities, and creating good green jobs to build cleaner, safer communities,” the letter read. “Through our actions we are sending clear signals to markets that fossil fuels are not welcome.”

More on the topic: How Cities Are Bracing For More Heat

And yet, world leaders have been slow at recognizing the key role cities play in the journey to decarbonization. A recent UN-Habitat report found that only 27% of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – national plans for emissions reduction that each signatory to the Paris Agreement is required to set up and update every five years – prominently featured urban sectors and identified them as a priority. Among the NDCs with strong urban focus are those of low- and middle-income countries including China, Colombia, Morocco, India, South Africa, and Turkey.

39% had moderate levels of urban content and the remaining 35% had low to no mention, including high-income and highly urbanized countries and regions such as Canada, Japan, the European Union, and the US along with Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

Speaking with Earth.Org in June, Lea Ranalder, Associate Programme Management Officer, Human Settlements at UN-Habitat acknowledged the gap between how cities are affected by climate change and how this is reflected in the NDCs.

“There’s a big disconnect between what projects need to happen and where the money goes. And it also has to do with our current climate finance infrastructure, where cities, depending on where they are, have problems getting the money.”

Ranalder’s sentiment was echoed in the letter.

“At a time when we need faster, fairer action, G20 nations continue to pour billions into fossil fuel  subsidies. It’s time to stop propping up these polluting industries and use these funds to scale up local and equitable climate action instead,” the signatories – which included the mayors of Milan, Boston, Montreal, Paris, and Barcelona – said.

Working with cities, Ranalder said, would allow countries to “tackle the climate crisis faster, more efficiently, and more effectively and with people in mind.” And yet, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest Assessment Report, $384 billion has so far been spent on climate action in urban areas, representing just 10% of what is necessary to build low-carbon and climate-resilient cities.

Featured image: Lieut. Commander Mark Moran, NOAA Corps, NMAO/AOC via Flickr.

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As the global community grapples with the urgent need to mitigate climate change, nature-based solutions have emerged as a promising strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing climate resilience. Recent studies suggest that natural climate solutions are modelled to potentially provide 37% of cost-effective CO2 mitigation needed through 2030 for a 66% chance of holding warming to below 2C. Despite this potential, the implementation of nature-based solutions faces significant challenges, particularly in financing, governance, and integration into broader climate policies.

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Nature-based solutions are defined as measures that protect, conserve, restore, and manage ecosystems while also enhancing human well-being, ecosystem services, and biodiversity. The core principle behind nature-based solutions is to work in harmony with nature rather than against it, offering sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to conventional engineering solutions.

Examples of nature-based solutions can be seen in Kenya, where drought is a persistent threat, and rangeland restoration efforts have significantly improved livestock productivity. These restored rangelands provide both resilient grazing grounds for livestock and additional income streams through sustainable practices like rotational grazing and fodder production, helping communities against the economic shocks that often accompany prolonged dry periods, thereby enhancing their overall resilience to climate change. Similarly, in Zimbabwe, forest conservation efforts have helped maintain the ecosystems necessary for beekeeping, a key source of income for local communities during droughts when traditional crops fail, ensuring that bees have access to diverse flora. 

Beyond their role in climate mitigation, nature-based solutions offer a range of co-benefits that are crucial for sustainable development. They have demonstrated significant positive impacts on biodiversity, thereby supporting a variety of plant and animal species. On average, nature-based interventions were associated with a 67% increase in plant or animal species richness, with 88% of interventions that reported positive outcomes for climate change adaptation reporting benefits for ecosystem health. Nature-based solutions also play a significant role in improving water quality. They can filter pollutants from runoff, improving the quality of water in rivers, lakes, and coastal areas, benefiting ecosystems, human health and livelihoods. Additionally, by involving local communities, these projects have social and economic benefits, such as job creation and increased environmental stewardship.

Nature-Based vs Engineering-Based Solutions

To date, the predominant response to extreme weather events and natural disasters has been engineered interventions like seawalls and levees. In Bangladesh, for example, 88% of adaptation projects approved by the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust involved engineered solutions, with only 12% focusing on nature-based solutions. Traditional engineering methods are often more effective in providing immediate, localised, and robust protection by physically blocking or redirecting water and other natural forces. However, they tend to be rigid, expensive to build and maintain, and can sometimes exacerbate environmental problems by disrupting natural ecosystems and processes. 

Nature-based solutions come with challenges, too. They require more space and time to establish and may not be as immediately effective as traditional methods in certain high-risk areas. Moreover, the success of nature-based solutions depends on proper planning, community involvement, and long-term management to ensure that they deliver the intended benefits. However, there is increasing evidence that these solutions can complement or even replace traditional engineering-based solutions in certain contexts. A 2024 paper suggests that, among the studies that compared nature-based solutions with engineering-based approaches, 65% found nature-based solutions to be more effective at mitigating hazards, while 26% found them to be partially more effective, but never less effective. 

How Cost-Effective Are Nature-Based Solutions?

In a 2024 study conducted by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, nature-based solutions were found to be consistently cost-effective in addressing a wide range of natural hazards. The study reviewed over 20,000 scientific articles and found that 71% of studies concluded that nature-based solutions are a cost-effective approach to mitigating risks from disasters such as floods, hurricanes, heatwaves, and landslides. Additionally, another 24% of the studies found nature-based solutions to be cost-effective under certain conditions. The most effective ecosystem-based approaches for mitigating natural hazards were linked to mangroves (80%), forests (77%), and coastal ecosystems (73%).

The problem with current evidence for the cost-effectiveness of nature-based solutions is that quantifying the full range of advantages they provide poses significant challenges, leading to an underestimation of their long-term economic benefits. These solutions offer a wide range of non-market benefits, including food and water security, carbon sequestration, aesthetic enjoyment, and community cohesion. These benefits are rarely accounted for in economic evaluations due to monetisation difficulties and uncertainties about their non-market value. Additionally, estimating the cost-effectiveness of nature-based solutions is complicated by the variable levels of protection they offer. It can fluctuate based on the intensity and frequency of threats, the resilience of the ecosystem to climate change, and the vulnerabilities of the socioeconomic system. 

Consequently, predicting and estimating the costs of ecosystem responses is more challenging compared to engineered infrastructure. As a result, even though nature-based solutions offer long-term economic and environmental benefits, they are often underutilised in favour of traditional engineering approaches. Advancements in modelling the effectiveness of natural landforms in mitigating hazards are helping to alleviate some of this uncertainty. However, policies that recognise and incentivise these broader benefits are also needed. 

How Are Nature-Based Solutions Financed?

Despite broad recognition of the severe threats to the global economy posed by climate change, less than 5% of climate finance is currently directed towards combating climate impacts, and less than 1% goes to coastal defences, infrastructure and disaster risk management. Similarly, nature-based solutions are undercapitalised with this lack of finance recognised as one of the main barriers to the implementation and monitoring of these solutions across the globe.

Financing nature-based solutions is complex, particularly for large-scale projects that require substantial investment. The implementation and funding of such projects are subject to market failures and barriers, including information shortfalls (due to the lack of data on the benefits and trade-offs of nature-based solutions, skills and expertise shortages, and a lack of awareness among the general public), a failure to coordinate across public agencies, high transaction costs, long timeframes for financial returns, and greater risk profiles than other comparable investment opportunities.

A large part of the problem is that many of the benefits associated with nature-based solutions cannot be capitalised by any one party or organisation. They create non-excludable benefits and co-benefits that impact many different groups, resulting in a “public good” problem. This often leads to underinvestment in these solutions because private entities cannot capture enough of the return on investment to justify the costs, making it difficult to incentivise private investment in such projects. As a result, it is estimated that only 3% of nature-based solution projects are financed by private capital. 

Additionally, financing requires the provision of appropriate risk-sharing arrangements. Typically, these projects are financed through debt, which results in those executing the projects shouldering a significant portion of the associated risk. For example, bank lending and microfinance – the most widely used sources of external funding in developing countries – often impose the risk burden on those who may already be economically vulnerable and least capable of absorbing potential losses. 

To scale up nature-based solutions effectively, there needs to be a shift towards financing models that do not solely rely on debt. 

What Barriers Are Preventing Nature-Based Solutions From Being Implemented?

Institutional norms and path dependency, where decision-makers tend to implement familiar solutions, also pose challenges to nature-based solutions adoption. Decision-making may be influenced by power dynamics, where choices are driven by interests tied to property regimes that do not support them. In certain cultural contexts, traditional engineering-based solutions are deeply ingrained and shape institutional practices, further compounded by a lack of awareness of ecosystem services provided by nature-based solutions, a lack of seeming responsibility for action, or the discounting of climate related risks. 

Overcoming these challenges requires robust institutions, well-established planning structures, and effective processes and instruments to ensure the benefits of nature-based solutions are realised across landscapes and seascapes.

Future Outlook

The growing recognition of nature-based solutions in international policy and business discussions reflects their significant potential to address the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Nature-based solutions can effectively mitigate climate change impacts while simultaneously supporting biodiversity and maintaining the ecosystem services vital for human well-being.

However, their integration into climate and development policies faces three main barriers. First, there is a significant challenge in accurately measuring or predicting the effectiveness of nature-based solutions, leading to uncertainties regarding their cost-effectiveness compared to traditional alternatives. Second, the financial models and economic appraisals used to evaluate nature-based solutions are often inadequate, resulting in underinvestment. Third, existing governance structures are often inflexible and highly segmented, which hampers the widespread adoption of nature-based solutions. Many decision-makers continue to default to engineered solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation.

While nature-based solutions are a promising tool for mitigating climate risk, realising their potential requires overcoming significant economic and political barriers.This, in turn, requires a fundamental shift in how interdisciplinary research is conducted and communicated, as well as how institutions are organised and operated. This includes developing more sophisticated financing models that account for the full range of benefits provided by nature-based solutions, as well as fostering institutional change that supports their integration into mainstream climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

While they have the potential to facilitate sustainable development within planetary boundaries, their benefits will only be fully realised if they are implemented within a systems-thinking framework which accounts for multiple ecosystem services and acknowledges the trade-offs between them from diverse stakeholder perspectives. As countries revise their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate policy increasingly focuses on greenhouse gas removal to meet targets, developing and applying this systematic framework should be a critical focus for future research.

Featured image: Derek Tang.

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