Until recently, international meetings on biodiversity, held under the auspices of the Convention on Biodiversity, have suffered relative anonymity compared with higher-profile climate negotiations. While nature groups and environmental scientists have long pointed out the link between climate and biodiversity crises, climate solutions have neglected biodiversity in favour of renewable energy or green technology development. Read more at straitstimes.com.
and restoring at least 30 per cent of the world’s degraded habitats.
In this regard, the announcement in 2022 that the European Commission had tabled a Nature Restoration Law, which will impose binding targets on member states to facilitate the recovery of nature, offers policymakers in South-east Asia a formula to reflect on. Second, the law accepts that nature is in a state of crisis, and that restoration rectifies consequential maladies while seeking to deliver both ecological functionality and human well-being.
Can restoring biodiversity in South-east Asia be achieved within the framework of a far more conservative political instrument like Asean? It does not have the mandate to bind member states and enforce obligations. Non-interference in the internal affairs of states is a sacrosanct principle, and economic prerogatives are guarded fiercely.
Cambodia has become a leader in securing nature through carbon financing. The Philippines has been the clearest in linking the benefits of restoration to poverty reduction, youth engagement and corporate responsibility through its National Greening Programme. Indonesia has offered insights into howand its championing of Ecosystem Restoration Concessions, which envision the private management of landscapes to facilitate restoration.
Asean can influence multilateral development agencies and commercial banks to develop similar initiatives to finance green infrastructure and nature restoration in the region.
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