The assumed benefits of green finance have papered over significant issues that could cripple conservation initiatives and lead to long-lasting repercussions for people around the globe, per a group of sustainability experts.
What's happening?
There's an investment gap in the race to save the planet from the worst effects of the changing climate, and it's been accepted without consideration that private financing, or "green finance," must catch up with public commitments, University of Leeds researchers wrote in The Conversation. The United Nations is among many to tout this funding as a way out of the climate crisis.
"A major risk," Julia Martin-Ortega, Joshua Cohen, and Ruth Bookbinder said, "is being overlooked: When we put a price on something given to us by nature, this fundamentally changes how we relate to it."
This could lead to sacrificing species, for example, with conservation for profit taking the place of humans' moral obligations to save the animals and habitats we have pushed to the brink.
Why is this important?
The authors argued that green finance will exacerbate inequality. Since the wealthy own most land, they have more opportunity to use it for gain, say, by planting trees or protecting peat bogs in exchange for carbon credits.
"The 'Mother Earth law' in Bolivia, for instance, enshrines in law the idea that people take care of nature because it is like taking care of family," the trio stated. "Ideas like this are not particularly compatible with a world in which forests are protected and species are saved because there is money to be made doing so."
They compared green finance to the gold rush and said it was alarming that it — and the associated risks — wasn't getting more attention.
They noted the United Kingdom's goal to annually inject £1 billion of private investment into nature recovery by 2030 is based on how the consequences of the changing climate, including loss of biodiversity via a sixth mass extinction and increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, will affect investors and companies' bottom lines.
What's being done about green finance?
The best bet to sidestep the problems of green finance is not simply to establish standards or seek more ethical nature investment avenues but to examine whether it is a worthwhile path to traverse and how to minimize obstacles and avoid pitfalls, according to the researchers.
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Should the government continue to give tax incentives for energy-efficient home upgrades? Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. |
Absolutely 💯 Martin-Ortega, Cohen, and Bookbinder suggested that one tenet should ensure local communities benefit from renewable energy projects and carbon offsets rather than corporations or wealthy landowners.
"Overall, there seems to be an implicit narrative in favour of commodification," they said. "Critically, it is not that the risks are unknown, but the framing remains decidedly commercial, centring the potential challenges for consumers and investors, and not in our relationship with nature."
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