Presenting Biodiversity Pulse, Carbon Pulse’s free newsletter on the biodiversity market. It’s a twice-weekly summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world. Subscribe here

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FOCUS ON PLASTICS

FEATURE: Pressure mounts to include plastic credits in UN treaty, verifiers point to increasing interest

Environmental market standards are intensifying their push to establish an international framework for plastic credits under the UN plastics treaty, even as experts raise concerns over the viability of recycling at scale.

INTERVIEW: Plastics treaty must reduce production to tackle pollution crisis

Upcoming negotiations at the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) meeting in Canada on a ‘global plastics treaty’ must set targets to reduce plastics production, a policy officer at Ocean Conservancy told Carbon Pulse, though the private sector favours recycling.

MARKET

Think tank advises Indigenous Peoples to reject alliance biodiversity credit proposals

Indigenous Peoples should “explicitly reject” proposals for the biodiversity credit market as they will promote offsetting, a think tank has said.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

Priority biodiversity-related investments for climate adaptation revealed in UN-backed guide

Commercially viable biodiversity-related investments in developing economies for climate adaptation have been identified in a guide by Standard Chartered, KPMG, and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

TOOLS & GUIDANCE

EU report flags differences between biodiversity disclosure initiatives

Key differences between the most prominent biodiversity disclosure initiatives have been examined in a report published by the EU Business & Biodiversity (B&B) Platform.

POLICY

UK should publish updated national biodiversity plan -report

The UK government should publish an updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAP) setting out how it will deliver on international nature goals through disclosures, a report has found.

SCIENCE & TECH

“Ghost roads” tearing down tropical forests in Asia-Pacific -research

Almost 1.4 million kilometres of roads not marked in official road maps and often built illegally, known as “ghost roads”, are presenting a grave threat to tropical forests in the Asia-Pacific region, researchers have found.

Biodiversity impact measuring tools have “glaring gaps” -study

The most commonly used tools to measure corporate impacts on biodiversity require urgent updates as they do not align well with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), according to a study released this week.

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CONFERENCE

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BITE-SIZED UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

MARKET

Biodiversity positive – Two-thirds of the carbon credits generated by restoration projects and issued to date are associated with biodiversity-positive methodologies, though carbon standards following the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) frameworks have failed to advance their nature requirements, a study has shown. Data analytics firm AlliedOffsets assessed 64 methodologies informing nearly 6,000 forestry and land restoration projects worldwide, which generated approximately 380 mln carbon credits. The analysis revealed that 67% of these units were issued for projects with methodologies that have biodiversity requirements. (Carbon Pulse)

BUSINESS & FINANCE

The true cost of your chair – An investigation from Greenpeace unveiled that seven manufacturers producing IKEA’s all-time favourite products, such as INGOLF chairs and SNIGLAR baby cribs and beds, are linked to the destruction of high-conservation value forests in the Romanian Carpathians, including two Natura 2000 protected sites. At least 30 products from these suppliers were found in IKEA stores across 13 European countries.

Illegal trade – A report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has revealed that a significant amount of ivory is being traded illegally across the EU. The research examined data from online marketplaces across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Germany in 2023. Researchers discovered 1,330 ivory and suspected ivory items for sale via 831 advertisements across 49 online marketplaces and auction house websites. Less than 10% of all adverts had verifiable evidence of legality, according to the report. In 2022, the EU Commission banned most forms of trade in elephant ivory.

POLICY

Island time – The Filipino government has cancelled its agreement with a civic organisation for “violating the provisions” of an island protected area contract. The violations from Socorro Bayanihan Services Incorporated – regarding 353 ha in the Siargao Island Protected Landscape and Seascape – included putting up checkpoints, failing to submit reports, and establishing infrastructure. A total of 404 households of tenured migrants in the area will be relocated, the government said.

Underfunded – Only 6% of national park land in England and Wales is being effectively managed for nature, according to a report by Campaign for National Parks (CNP). The lack of government funding and the expansion of farming are among the issues hampering restoration efforts, The Guardian reported. “We need urgent action and major changes. The government needs to strengthen legislation and significantly increase the resources that are going into nature recovery in the national parks,” said Ruth Bradshaw, the policy manager for the CNP.

Delayed – As many as 28 coastal protection projects in Denmark have been delayed over the past five years due to the lack of funding, legislation, and citizen opposition, according to a survey by the magazine Momentum, published by the National Association of Municipalities (KL). “A legislation change is required where civil resistance and misplaced concern for nature stands in the way of making necessary safeguards for coastal stretches,” said chair of KL’s Climate and Environment Committee Birgit Stenbak Hansen. The survey was based on responses from 55 of Denmark’s 77 coastal municipalities, The Copenhagen Post reported.

SCIENCE & TECH

EU aflame – The 2023 wildfire season was among the worst in the EU, an EU Commission report said Wednesday. Over 500 mln ha, an area twice the size of Luxembourg, was scorched by wildfires, according to the advance report published by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). “The wildfires resulted in severe damage to the environment, producing some 20 megatonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to nearly a third of all emissions from international aviation in the EU in one year.” Greece suffered the largest single fire to occur in Europe since the 1980s, in a wider phenomenon caused by climate change that will worsen, it said.

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