A lot more funding is absolutely necessary to combat climate change and aid in the recovery of character. According to the UN’s State of Finance for Nature record, the world needs to commit an additional US$ 4.1 trillion by 2050 if it wants to meet its weather, biodiversity, and land degradation goals.
With most of the existing funding coming from public sources ( US$ 133 billion ), calls to close the “investment gap” are now focusing heavily on private investments, commonly referred to as green finance. This narrative has such power that it is now widely believed that multinational investors are required to be involved.
There are a lot of activities looking to provide or secure , personal investments , to recover nature, for example, through coal and wildlife markets. However, a significant threat is being overlooked: when we place a value on something that is naturally given to us, how we relate to it necessarily changes.
This commodification of nature now drives the global market. Food and fuel, for instance, have been bought and sold for millennia. However, we are now extending the reach to formerly untraded natural resources like coal and biodiversity.
These elements of nature can be altered by this approach. For example, while we may have previously felt morally compelled to protect a particular species or habitat, our motivations perhaps shift to” conservation because it makes a profit” after that kind of nature is commercialized.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres articulated this worldview at the launch of a , State of Finance for Nature , report in 2021 when he said:” By taking profits of nature-based solutions, we can vastly improve human well-being and prosperity”.
All this heightens the risk of increased injustice. For example, since only a select few people own most of the nation’s territory, those people will profit from selling carbon credits ( for example, by planting trees or protecting soil wetlands on their land ). This concentrates carbon-based income into one company. ( This is comparable to large property owners being able to charge rents and appoint more wealth )
The notion that nature is something that can be purchased and sold in a market was a European plan before it was adopted by other cultures. These remaining non-Western systems risk being further marginalized as business thinking expands further into the normal world.
The” Mother Earth rules” in Bolivia, for example, enshrines in law the idea that people take care of nature because it is like taking care of family. Tips like this conflict with a world where trees are protected and types are saved because of the money being made.
Despite the existence of proof of the dangers of character commodification, dangerously little attention is being paid to it in the recently launched advocacy for natural finance, which has a new gold rush.
Inherent narrative in favor of commodification
The UK is a good illustration of how the issues of character commodification are ignored as a result of a force for private funding to address the climate and biodiversity catastrophes. In 2023, the then government set a target to stimulate £500 million ($ 626.6 million ) per year of private investment into nature recovery, aiming to increase it to £1 billion ($ 1.25 billion ) per year by 2030 ( there are no signs yet that the Labour government, elected in 2024, will change this strategy ).
However, when we examined 19 coverage and consulting documents that make up this alternative financing strategy, we discovered that they increasingly consider risks in terms of how they affect investors or the market.
There is a lot of discussion about the financial results and the likelihood of consumers losing trust as a result of “greenwashing.” Only one document, a conversation of “natural capital”, provides specific cases of social and cultural threats for remote areas.
Nevertheless, there seems to be an inherent tale in favor of commodification. Critically, it is not that the challenges are unidentified, but the frame remains very business, centering the potential problems for consumers and investors, and not in our relationship with nature.
Red banners are now flashing as more tales emerge about market-based” carbon offsetting” policies that favor large landowners and could lead to more remote inequalities and preventing nearby communities from gaining access to the earnings from wind farms, forests, or peat bogs.
Those who have a vested interest in generating income from dynamics does minimize the commodification debate. And people who are fervently committed to natural healing but frustrated with slow development may unintentionally ignore those same issues.
Nevertheless, if we don’t get the way that personal alternative finance fundamentally alters how we relate to nature, things might get worse.
This is not to reduce the possibility of social initiatives to invest in nature, but merely applying” great standards” will not be enough. We need to ask ourselves whether this is what we really want as a world, and if so, how can we effectively reduce and alleviate those challenges.
Julia Martin-Ortega is doctor at the Sustainability Research Insitute and associate director water@leeds, University of Leeds, Joshua Cohen is research fellow of water and sanitation management, University of Leeds, and Ruth Bookbinder is research brother, University of Leeds
The Conversation has republished this post under a Creative Commons license. Read the original content.