Speakers at the One Forest Summit that began on Wednesday in Gabon described the converging of nature and climate goals and outlined their view that the private sector will assume a leading role in channeling finance to nascent biodiversity markets.

During the event held in the forest-rich country’s capital Libreville, Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan urged those developing both the carbon and less-established biodiversity markets not to agonise over trying to resolve every issue to scale private finance towards meeting nature and climate goals.

“One way or another, this is about to happen,” he told the event referring to the crediting nature protection.

“I would rather see us move faster, be transparent about what we learn and then figure out a best way forward, rather than try and solve every problem a priori before engaging in [the market].”

The deal agreed to protect 30% of global nature by 2030 at the UN’s COP15 event in Montreal last December now puts private finance at the “front and centre” of achieving this goal, he said.

Several of the 23 targets in the final agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, clearly point towards the role of private finance in protecting and restoring nature.

The advantage of mobilising private finance first is that while smaller in scale than public entities, it can move faster, Sanjayan said.

“Governments are inherently slow … and nearly always follow,” he said, adding that the incentive to move now is already there and corporates are waking up to this already.

The imperative is to move as soon as possible, given the estimated current funding gap stands at $700 bln in financing for nature.

“Nature tomorrow, in the future, will be more valuable that it is today,” he added, stressing that “we must be able to make a market” based on the clear supply and demand-side incentives.

Meanwhile, representing the government of France, which organised the summit in Gabon, international development minister Chrysoula Zacharopoulou called for a holistic perception that incorporates both carbon and nature goals in the approach.

Speaking in French, she referred to the shortfall in funding for biodiversity “to the tune of several billion dollars” now means that the crediting markets needed a convergence.

She said that France would urge all countries and investors to come up with a unified paradigm to tackle these twin challenges.

The One Forest Summit, the first in a series of green finance summits spearheaded by France in the run-up to the year-end COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai, takes place in Gabon between Mar. 1-2.

The outcome of the series of discussions is expected to shed light on the kinds of financing solutions that will be championed by the Global North and South at the climate COP in December.

BIODIVERSITY CREDITING

While nature markets are very early in development with methodologies only just being piloted and projects established, action is happening fast and parallels are already being drawn to carbon.

Several speakers described the pairing of biodiversity outcomes with carbon credits as a positive first step.

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, CEO of the Global Environment Facility, coined such bundling of outcomes as “gourmet carbon” putting the current premium at around $4/tonne.

Others, such as Lee White, environment minister of Gabon, welcomed this so-called “nesting” approach, where biodiversity outcomes are tucked into carbon credits and sold on the voluntary carbon market (VCM).

Experts have suggested to Carbon Pulse in the past that combining biodiversity outcomes with existing products in the VCM is the most likely first step towards scaling nature markets.

Ensuring any biodiversity market attracts a sufficient scale of buyers will be contingent on the complexity of the first rules, the CEO of French asset management firm Mirova, Philippe Zaouati, told the summit.

He suggested that any separate biodiversity market framework would need to be straightforward for buyers in order to scale demand.

“If we want to build this market we need a framework that is simple, clear, and understandable,” he said, warning that buyers otherwise may shy away from involvement.

Margaret Kim, CEO at carbon standard Gold Standard, offered a similar view.

“We need clarity between supply and demand … we can create nature certificates but where are the buyers?” she asked, pointing towards the sheer scale of growth required as a reason for why demand needed to be supported as an initial step.

The summit continues on Thursday with the leaders of Gabon and France, Ali Bongo and Emmanuel Macron, due to speak.

By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com