The private sector has a key role to play in developing National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and achieving the $200-billion funding target for nature, according to Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, director and executive coordinator of environmental finance at UNDP.

In the aftermath of agreeing the Global Biodiversity Framework last December, developing NBSAPs is now a main focus for governments worldwide and a process that can help countries better understand biodiversity in their own national context.

In an interview with Carbon Pulse, Kurukulasuriya stressed that the private sector, Indigenous peoples, and non-state actors should all be involved in their creation.

“Biodiversity does not exist in a vacuum, especially for governments, if action has to be taken there are other things that have to be addressed at a national level,” he said.

“It really does matter to think about how biodiversity matters in the broader growth context of the country. How does this affect agriculture? Forestry? Fisheries? Those industries that [are] based on ecosystems.”

NBSAPs aim to cover aspects that enable a country to achieve its COP15 biodiversity targets. They consider legal and policy frameworks, potential impacts on benefit-sharing and resources within the plans, and can be lengthy to develop.

All 196 signatory countries to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will complete an NBSAP. However, only Japan is so far the only country to submit their final version to the CBD since the Kunming-Montreal GBF was signed. In addition, Spain in December submitted a ‘Strategic Plan on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity to 2030’.

Kurukulasuriya highlighted the key issues countries face when developing NBSAPs, including understanding the relevance of biodiversity for the country at various levels, including at the ecosystem or species levels.

“For many countries, the main challenges are understanding the implications of impacts of biodiversity at the scale and rate of change that they have to encounter. That’s a science-based issue,” said Kurukulasuriya.

“A lot of developing countries don’t have the necessary data, they haven’t done the scientific analysis, despite seeing many of the impacts.”

Countries have challenges when understanding scientifically how the scale and rate of change in biodiversity affect them, the UNDP director said.

PROGRAMMING PROGESS

NBSAPs – playing a similar role in biodiversity as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in climate – are central to country-led approaches for implementing the GBF, but a lack of resources to develop them has meant a global programme was needed.

The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) teamed up with UNDP and UN Environment to implement a $500 mln NBSAP support programme across 139 countries.

Some countries are early movers in setting the standard for public-private approaches for developing national plans. Kurukulasuriya pointed to Mexico and Malaysia as leading with having strong engagement with the private sector within their approach.

“Mexico is currently leading a consultative process with 40 institutions to set a national vision with the GBF. They’re working to link their national biodiversity targets across key sectors. It’s a very concerted effort to integrate biodiversity,” he said.

“Malaysia is developing its first NBSAP by the end of the year. They are looking at both the public and private sector, and are using the process to raise co-finance from the private sector to support the implementation of the strategy.”

“It matters not just for the sake of conservation but it matters for the growth and development of these countries,” Kurukulasuriya said.

He clarified that NBSAPs should not be seen as dictating what the private sector does but that he would like to see them co-created with the private sector to ensure the plans are implementable through shared investment patterns.

“At the most basic level, we need to see more entrenched recognition [from the private sector] on why this matters. Not just saving monkey species or sensitive ecosystems, it matters in terms of their own business projections. At the end of the day, all businesses rely on a healthy ecosystem.”

“The scale of the problem is way too big for just governments to deal with. it’s going to require the whole of society to come together on some of these issues,” he said.

WHO PAYS?

In recent days, as the GEF Assembly takes place in Vancouver, a plethora of reports and calls to scale up private financing to achieve the GBF’s targets have ramped up. The GEF is the largest environmental donor in the world, but funding biodiversity actions is an uphill struggle.

A study released by the UNEP Finance Initiative revealed that 58% of countries spend less than 0.5% of their GDP on biodiversity protection, with areas of high biodiversity richness spending the least.

Target 19 of the GBF aims to mobilise $200 billion by 2030 and Kurukulasuriya sees private finance as critical to achieve that. Later this week the GEF is expected to launch a public fund to support achieving the targets of the GBF and associated NBSAPs.

“There are lots of conversations of how to increase the overall share [of public sector funding], whether it’s from international allocations from the global north to the global south or from the tax revenue base at the country level by repurposing subsidies,” said Kurukulasuriya.

Earlier this week a group of NGOs, led by WWF, had advocated for developed countries to provide more public funds. Similarly, a $7 trillion investor group asked the G20 to reform public agricultural subsidies to put climate and nature goals at the forefront.

“Even more important is to look at market-based solutions, because of the scale of finance that’s needed. The larger subset of finance that’s available is in the private sector. For that, we have to look at ways we can create conditions for innovative finance instruments to be deployed,” said the director.

UNDP sees its role as accessing and sequencing funds from the GEF and the Green Climate Fund that can be leveraged, so countries have the capacity to access additional innovative forms of nature and climate-related finance. Kurukulasuriya emphasised that the UNDP’s direct support to Indigenous peoples and communities is as important as the work they do supporting governments, which has been a key theme of this year’s GEF Assembly.

While Kurukulasuriya contended that carbon finance has a critical role to play, he emphasised that the main actors involved have not yet defined what will make carbon finance effective in achieving targets laid out in the NBSAPs.

A closed-door side event held at the GEF assembly this week looked at how countries are progressing on their NBSAPs since the Global Biodiversity Framework was agreed upon in December.

By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com

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