UK Environment Secretary Therese Coffey on Wednesday announced the country has committed £30 million to the new public-private Big Nature Impact Fund, which will be managed by Pittsburgh-based investment manager Federated Hermes and UK financial advisory firm Finance Earth.
Coffey made the announcement during Biodiversity Day at the COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh.
“We continue to demonstrate international leadership through commitments to create a natural world that is richer in plants and wildlife to tackle the climate crisis, and at next month’s meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity we will strive for an ambitious agreement that includes a global 30by30 target, a commitment to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and an increase in resources for the conservation and protection of nature from all sources,” she said.
The fund will aim to unlock fresh private investments into nature projects in the UK, such as tree planting or peatland restoration, as well as sequester carbon and support cleaner air and water, a UK government release said.
At the same time, the UK pledged an additional £12 mln to the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance for the protection and restoration of vulnerable coastal communities and habitats, £6 mln in developing country capacity-building funding to increase commitments to nature and nature-based solutions under the Paris Agreement, and £5 mln for the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund for the Amazon.
Coffey said the Big Nature Impact Fund will seek to help close the roughly $700 billion annual funding gap to battle global biodiversity loss.
The announcement was welcomed by Emma Howard Baye, chair of the Green Finance Institute.
“Government funding that helps to catalyse private investment is crucial to fill the national and global funding gap for nature,” she said in the press release.
“The UK government’s Big Nature Impact Fund will demonstrate investment opportunities which are key to developing and scaling high integrity nature markets in the City of London and financial centres around the world. The Green Finance Institute looks forward to continuing to support the growth of these markets.”
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