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It’s time we stopped playing with fire on nature loss

Nature and climate are two sides of the same challenge - businesses, governments and civil society must rise to both together.

This summer has once again brought the risks of climate change into sharp focus. Flooded fields, heat-warped rail lines and devastating wildfires have served as a stark reminder that the consequences of inaction are no longer distant threats. They are already disrupting our infrastructure, supply chains, communities and economy. 

Yet despite this wake-up call, businesses and governments have, for too long, approached environmental challenges in silos. Instead, one of the most important lessons we should draw from these increasingly frequent extremes is that climate change and nature loss are not separate crises to be tackled independently. They are deeply interconnected, and we will not succeed in addressing one without addressing the other.  

A stable climate depends on healthy natural systems, just as healthy natural systems depend on a stable climate. However, as we speak, climate change and nature loss are reinforcing and accelerating one another, creating risks that no business, government or community can afford to ignore.  

A male redstart perched on a lichen-covered branch, singing with its beak open. The bird has a bright orange-red breast and belly, a slate-gray head with a white forehead, and a black face.

Male redstart singing © Mark Hamblin / 2020VISION

Science tells us that many of our parents and grandparents would have heard more birdsong, had more insects on their windscreens, and enjoyed healthier rivers. Yet playing out across our quiet, desolate fields, tower blocks and greying shores, nature is in profound decline. Species are disappearing, habitats are being degraded and ecosystems that have supported people and economies for generations are increasingly under pressure. 

This matters not only because nature has intrinsic value, but because our societies and economies depend upon it. The failure to protect and restore healthy soils, thriving waterways and functioning marine ecosystems is threatening our way of life, while simultaneously making the climate challenge harder to solve.

An expanse of dry, cracked earth at a reedbed, the result of a drought

Dry, cracked earth at a reedbed © Logan Walker 

Natural flood, fire and drought defences - including wetlands, woodlands and peatlands - continue to be degraded, undermining their ability to protect communities from the impacts of climate change. Meanwhile, without healthy ecosystems, the food, water and resources we rely upon are also put at risk, undermining private sector supply chains, as the National Audit Office have warned. Beyond our shores for example, commodities as varied as chocolate, timber and coffee are becoming harder to produce, not only because the climate is changing, but because the ecosystems on which they depend are also under growing strain. 

It’s clear that the rapid decline of our natural ecosystems is eroding the foundations of society, and that without action, we stand to fail in building the climate resilient economies, businesses and supply chains the future demands.  If we are serious about securing a liveable and prosperous future, we must instead tackle both nature and climate challenges together. 

The economic case is equally compelling. More than half of global GDP, equivalent to around $58 trillion, is moderately or highly dependent on nature. At the same time, delayed integration of nature and climate action is projected to add at least $500 billion annually to the cost of meeting global climate targets. The message is clear: nature recovery is not separate from economic resilience or climate ambition. It is fundamental to both. 

While the risks posed by nature loss have never been clearer, thankfully, the solutions are increasingly well understood, and the steps required to change course are within our grasp.  

The Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed at the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022, marked a landmark moment in efforts to restore nature at the scale needed to avoid the worst impacts of environmental decline. For the first time, nearly 250 countries collectively committed to maintaining and enhancing nature's contributions to people, alongside ambitious goals to reduce species extinctions and habitat loss, restore 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, and provide adequate financial resources to reverse biodiversity loss. 

Heralded as the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’, the framework has since been complemented by growing international guidance on how businesses, governments and civil society can play their part. Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) set out 100 actions designed to embed nature recovery into every boardroom, corporate strategy and policy commitment. 

Crucially, this roadmap recognises that nature is not simply an optional add-on to climate action, and that progress on one depends upon progress on the other. Healthy ecosystems underpin climate stability, economic prosperity and societal resilience, and when protected and restored, are among the most effective tools available for carbon storage and protection from climate harms. Meanwhile, a stable climate is essential for these critical ecosystems to survive and thrive.  

Many pioneering business leaders are already demonstrating this in practice, whether through financing nature-friendly farming, protecting water catchments, or supporting rainforest restoration. Their experience, including when working with us here at The Wildlife Trusts, is busy proving that integrated climate and nature action can deliver long-term business value while strengthening future resilience. 

As we move into a new era of climate extremes, and four years on from the adoption of the Global Biodiversity Framework, the demand for this kind of integrated action is only growing, and it’s clear that we cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes of the early climate action era: years of acknowledging the problem whilst avoiding difficult decisions.  

Instead, at next month’s COP 17, the UN Biodiversity Conference in Armenia, we must see business leaders stand shoulder to shoulder with policymakers to chart a course that propels us into a nature-rich and climate-safe future.  

Make no mistake: addressing climate change and nature loss together will require ambition, innovation and collective effort from us all. But first, we must reject the false choice that pits one against the other – failing to do so will at best stall, and at worst unravel, any vital progress towards a liveable future.  

Nature and climate are two sides of the same challenge, and so if we are serious about securing a prosperous and secure economy, businesses, governments and civil society must rise to both together.  

This article was originally published in Business Green

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