The Mirpuri Foundation participated in a Knowledge Dialogue by the IUCN’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, which tackled biodiversity and how the actions and investments needed to achieve ambitious goals are to be financed.
The online event dived into the state of play in mobilizing public and especially private finance for nature-positive investments, including those which are also climate positive, bringing together leading experts on biodiversity finance. The ultimate goal was to answer the question “How to devise investible projects which yield both biodiversity benefits and acceptable financial returns for prospective investors?”
The event was introduced by Sylvie Lemmet (France’s Ambassador for the Environment) and started off with a keynote presentation by Dr. Andrew Deutz of The Nature Conservancy, lead co-author of the 2020 report on Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap.
A moderated panel followed, with discussions by Juha Siikamaki (Chief Economist, IUCN), Ralph Chami (Assistant Director, International Monetary Fund), Odile Conchou (Senior Biodiversity Project Manager, French Agency of Development and Co-Chair Support, TNFD), Dan Zarin (Executive Director, Forests and Climate Change, Wildlife Conservation Society) and Anita de Horde (Co-Founder, Finance for Biodiversity Pledge and Foundation).
An interactive dialogue closed the almost three-hour event, providing the participants with the opportunity to contribute to the discussions.
As Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity enter the final stages of negotiation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, a central concern is closing the large financing gap to be able to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity globally.
Even once nature-negative subsidies are eliminated, a financing gap will remain of well over $100 billion per year. A crucial concern is how to unlock a fraction of the huge sums of private investment capital currently sitting in the portfolios of institutional investors.
Since the launch of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have been convening Knowledge Dialogues at the United Nations, to inform and engage diplomats and policymakers on the latest and best science and practice relating to nature conservation and sustainable use, demonstrating nature’s fundamental importance to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
