A new study says that compensating the world’s poorest communities for helping conserve the planet’s most vital habitats would help solve two major challenges: biodiversity loss and poverty.

In fact, if global leaders were to put an economic value on the preservation of the world’s biodiversity hotspots — including such benefits as providing food and water and absorbing carbon emissions — it could be worth more than $500 billion annually for 330 million of the world’s poorest people.

Since the people who live near these resources typically don’t have the means to protect them, the urgency for such economic mechanisms becomes increasingly critical, according to the study, published in the journal BioScience. “Developed and developing economies cannot continue to ask the world’s poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally important ecosystem services for the world’s benefit,” said Will Turner, vice president of Conservation International and lead author of the study.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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A new report by the United Nations Environment Program says that moving towards a green economy is the most effective way to reduce worldwide poverty

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a report last week arguing the risks we face today are much different from what they were 50 years ago. The report, Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, concludes that a shift to a green economy “has the potential to achieve sustainable development and poverty eradication on a scale and at a speed not seen before.”

Greener Economy Focus Means Job-Creation and Economic Growth

Public and private investments aimed at increasing and enhancing natural capital (i.e forests, water, soil and fish stocks) creates new economic sectors and new technologies. Investing in clean energy, energy efficiency, recycling, sustainable agriculture, and waste management technologies and infrastructure, as well as human capital related to these, will create jobs, income, and economic growth. By both traditional measures of economic growth and vitality as well as more holistic measures that take the value of natural capital into account more, the report finds that by 2020, taking a green economy route rather than a business-as-usual route will result in better economic results.

In agriculture, buildings, forestry and transportation, a green economy approach would create jobs in the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term. In other sectors, a green approach is needed for medium- and/or long-term economic sustainability.

Public Sector Needed to Jump-Start Shift to a Green Economy

The private sector, of course, needs to invest in a greener economy in order for the world to achieve these benefits, but the public sector has a clear role to play as well.

It must help “in overcoming distortions introduced by perverse subsidies and externalized costs,” the report remarks. “And public investment will be required to jump-start an effective transition to a green economy.”

To read more about how, exactly, a green economy approach is better for the economy, or the governmental policies needed to lead us into this economy, read the full report.

Article by Zachary Shahan, appearing courtesy ecopolitology.

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Some of the world’s fastest-growing economies — including India and Bangladesh — are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a new report. The nations at the most extreme risk are those already dealing with high poverty levels, dense populations, exposure to climate-related events, and a reliance on flood- or drought-prone agricultural lands, according the Climate Change Vulnerability Index compiled by Maplecroft, a UK-based consulting group.

The report says 16 nations are at “extreme risk,” with Bangladesh topping the list because of significant poverty levels, its dependence on agriculture, and the government’s lack of capacity to adapt to climate change. While India is already one the world’s largest economies, its vulnerability to climate-related events could scare off foreign investment in the coming decades, the report says. Among the 25 nations characterized as most at risk, 12 are located in Africa. Among those considered “low risk” are Norway, Finland, and Iceland.

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India will not accept limits on its greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks later this year and instead will focus on economic growth and lifting its people out of poverty, according to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He said that a legally binding emissions target would endanger India’s food security and transport, adding, “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and overriding priorities.”

India has low per capita greenhouse gas emissions, but its population of 1 billion and the country’s rapid economic development now make it the world’s fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In advance of international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, China has also said it would reject limits on its CO2 emissions, and India’s declaration further complicates prospects of securing an international agreement. Both nations have called on the developed world to commit to sharp emissions reductions, with China saying the U.S. should slash CO2 emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Chinese officials have criticized a climate bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives for falling far short of that goal.

This article originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 at http://e360.yale.edu

[photo credit: joiseyshowaa]

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