A new blueprint for the ecological transition. As the tools and systems needed for the measurement and valuation of Nature come online, true sustainability is getting closer.
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Man-Earth system problems and solutions, Part 3
Towards Ecologically Wiser Management
Link to Part 1 of this post
Link to Part 2 of this post
Section 1 – The EcoSustainability Transition
Introduction
“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.” – Sir David Attenborough
Nature, underpinned by biologically diverse ecosystems, is critical to human survival, well-being and the economic system. Half of global GDP is generated in sectors that highly or moderately depend on Nature and its services. And two-thirds of food production relies in part on Nature’s pollinators. Natural capital is therefore a core part of national wealth.
Climate change, overuse of natural resources, habitat loss, invasive species and pollution – these are the interconnected drivers causing the decline in Nature. The decline in Nature is long-lived and worldwide. Ecological communities and biodiversity are disappearing at incredible rates. We are close to the tipping point, beyond which survival and basic food and water security become increasingly challenging.
It is time to fully protect and restore our ecosystems, not more of the same.
Restoring biodiverse ecosystems is the most cost-effective way to build resilience and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It also provides a structural means to substantially reduce carbon, while reversing the environmental impacts of BAU (Business-As-Usual). It requires transitioning our economies to production practices that are truly sustainable.
The challenge is therefore to adopt new structural approaches to Sustainability – to bring us EcoSustainability. Approaches that can effectively counteract the BAU setting.
Strategic investment in the EcoSustainability transition will create long-term and local value. The sustainable transition of food, land and water use, alongside infrastructure and energy, forms the core of the future physical economy. Importantly, it will support the growth and self-sufficiency of local economies.
Governance 4.0
“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.” – Kenneth Boulding
The goal of true sustainability on a system-wide level has so far proven elusive. Implementation of sustainability goals takes place in a world dominated by human development and economic priorities. Governance is carried out within a coupled social-environmental system, but with a BAU (Business As Usual) system setting.
Not surprisingly, BAU system settings have resulted in BAU sustainability outcomes.
Short-termism and economic self-interest have been key factors on the road to the present polycrisis. Despite three decades of UN COPs and major international accords, governments worldwide have collectively failed to overcome the economic capture / allure of fossil fuel resources, or to engage in sufficiently aggressive mitigation policies. In sociological terms, the myopia (and ideologies) of the current generations prevent them from deviating too far from what they know – or taking the ‘extreme’ actions required.
In consequence, the planet continues to heat up, the effects of climate change are already here, biodiversity is in rapid decline. Sea level rise and tipping points are next.
The Business-As-Usual (BAU) path means that future generations now inherit a world with a more volatile and less hospitable climate, a hotter drier world on average. A world where resources conservation and sustainability are going to be dominant themes out of necessity.
Our governance models have adapted to include Sustainability, but in terms of the impact on Nature, they remain non-sustainable in important respects. Closing the gap is difficult even in advanced economies, with short-termist socioeconomic issues a typical obstruction.
Strategic long-term thinking and governance are needed, worldwide, to escape the worst effects. It requires political leaders to adopt an enlightened long-term perspective, and bring their electorates with them.
Governance 4.0 changes the top down approach of the past – governments clearly do not have all the answers. Ecological Governance is the way forward – to make Sustainability truly sustainable. All stakeholders and constituents are important in addressing the social and environmental problems. Networks such as the C40 Cities coalition are an important means to create global momentum to accelerate climate action. The global scientific community is of invaluable importance to supporting ways to ensure true sustainability at the ecosystems level. And the Restoration of Nature is the most important mission of all.
Finance 4.0
“Our economy relies on nature. Thus, destroying nature means destroying the economy. Preventing the former is in the realm of elected governments as nature policy-makers. We as ECB have to take nature-related risks into account in the pursuit of our mandate.”
ECB (European Central Bank)
“There’s never been a clearer threat to survival, or to justice, than the rapid rise in the planet’s temperature caused by and for the profit of a microscopic percentage of its citizens”
Bill McKibben
The ‘money code’ is endemic to the modern way of life. The nature of finance is that it creates power law wealth distributions over time – amongst individuals, businesses, and nations. Elites who are the beneficiaries of the power law will predictably safeguard their positions and continue to extract more. With notable exceptions, they are not well represented on Team Planet.
The world is facing a number of social and environmental crises. Protecting Nature is key to solving these crises, but solutions are costly and time is running out. Yet we live in a world where unfettered money printing occurs when needed. For example to stabilise the economy and the banking sector, or to invest in infrastructure opportunities. Frankly speaking, when the interests of Elites are threatened or can be improved, or both. But the threats from Nature are not perceived in the same way. Not yet anyway. Another dimension of the ‘tragedy of the commons’.
“We talk about the dual crises of the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis but there is a third crisis – the debt crisis. Too often, those on the front lines of dealing with the adverse effects of a warming planet and nature loss must grapple with the vicious cycle of debt and rebuilding. Too many countries are one storm away from catastrophe.”
Jennifer Morris, CEO, The Nature Conservancy
“The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed” – William Gibson
In the meantime, there are two imperatives for Sustainable Finance: Systems and funding that create a sustainable relationship between
A. Finance and Nature
B. Finance and People
Top-down Funding for Nature and Developing countries assists both A and B.
The recent COP29 process has made important progress on this, through the established format of national commitments and multilateral funding sources. A breakthrough agreement that aims to achieve by 2035:
- Nature finance (GBF Target 19) to developing countries of $300 billion p.a.
- Scale up of finance to developing countries (from public and private sources) to $1.3 trillion p.a.
Important top-down financing structures will include debt-for-nature swaps, and in future, carbon debt-for-nature asset swaps.
“… debt conversions result in a win-win-win for governments, local communities, and nature by reducing a country’s overall debt burden, providing resources for economic development for local communities, and by unlocking funding to conserve a country’s most vital ecosystems.”
Robert Menzi, Interim President and CEO, Wildlife Conservation Society
Ultimately a more structural solution is needed – an Environmental Funds and Taxes system – in order to speed up the whole process and achieve greater ‘automatic’ / structural supplies of funding.
Alongside, the challenge is to develop decentralised funding solutions that use scalability for the long-term benefit of Nature and Populations. We now live in a world of advanced technologies that can improve and transform the funding landscape through bottom-up / community approaches. Nature banking, Nature finance programs, and digital currencies that preserve Nature and are linked to the value of Nature, are some of the many ways to reflect and reverse the declining biodiversity of Nature.
Lastly, international law may yet lead to increased action and centralised funding (see also Legal Action section below). The ICJ is expected to issue an advisory opinion later this year on UN member states’ obligations in addressing climate change, at the referral of the UN General Assembly.
Nature 4.0
By focusing on biodiversity inventory outcomes – we create direct links to how well ecosystems function in practice. This is the way to deliver and evidence Nature positive outcomes over the short and long term. With the help of modern tools and science (see also Appendix 1), we can create standardised digital biodiversity inventories, supplementing work on the ground and remotely.
The Restoration of Nature can be thought of as a global portfolio of individually-funded projects and initiatives with a common purpose – to bring Nature back to her former glory. To do this we must protect, restore and expand the biodiversity inventory, and the commons that make that possible (water, soil, air).
The Restoration of Nature mission combines with other Sustainability measures to counterbalance the effects of BAU:
- Ecological sustainability as a key pillar, driving more effective sustainable governance of key natural resources (soils, water, biodiversity)
- Joined-up and effective action – from local policy to global science databases / analytics, to global networks with shared purpose
- Effective sustainable governance of human development (urban, agricultural, restorative)
- Management, monitoring and policing systems for natural capital
- Natural capital accounting based on biodiversity inventories / biocomplexity
Biodiversity Inventories
Biodiversity represents the variety of genes, species and ecosystems present on Earth, as well as the natural processes that sustain them. Life in all its forms. Clearly, to inventory and document all life forms and their conservation status is a complex and herculean task. At one end of the spectrum, biodiversity inventories include exhaustive “all-taxa” surveys that seek to identify the full complement of living organisms within an area of interest. A more typical and pragmatic approach to biodiversity inventory is a targeted inventory approach, for particular ecological communities or taxonomic groups.
Conservation and management of biodiversity is greatly facilitated by access to reliable information on condition and location of species and ecological communities. Biodiversity criteria have increasingly been incorporated into forestry certification standards, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), a global alliance of national forest certification systems. Groups such as Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy have innovated as a result of practising conservation all over the world – with the use of distributional / geo-spatial data, landscape-scale projects, and best practices across forestry, grazing, agriculture and water. Land managers have also become more proactive about biodiversity inventories, documenting biodiversity hot spots in advance and incorporating them into planning ahead of time.
Due to the sheer complexity of Nature, there are virtually no places where on-the-ground inventories of biodiversity are considered complete. This is particularly true in more remote or inaccessible areas. Even in reasonably well-studied locations with over a century of recorded natural history data, information on lesser-known taxa may be scarce.
Enter a new initiative from the team at ETHZ – the SEED Index, described as “the world’s most holistic measure of biodiversity”. A standardised, single metric varying from 0 (completely degraded) to 1 (natural state). It can be used to reflect nature’s complexity across multiple scales – on genetic, species and ecosystem levels.
The index approach represents a departure from attributional approaches that seek to capture the millions of elements comprising the underlying biological inventories. With a biocomplexity index used as the metric, a rapidly-scalable framework for biodiversity metrics can be established. Enabling the quantification, measurement and valuation of biodiversity and thus a granular natural capital accounting.
Inventory tools and systems such as the SEED Index are further explored in Appendix 1.
Ecological Governance
‘Green growth’ is the idea that a society’s ecological and economic goals can be pursued together, in a mutually positive way. It accepts that economies increase in scale and efficiency, but contemplates that economic growth may occur in less ecologically harmful ways. Societies where ecological objectives and policies are effectively integrated – with all sectors of society working more collaboratively for positive-sum solutions. The agents for such change are new policies, with accompanying changes to investment patterns, technology support and behavioural change.
Many critics doubt the ability of BAU economic systems to foster green growth, or to respond to difficult man-made problems like climate change and land / biodiversity degradation. Historically, there has been insufficient application and resources to tackle the “last mile” – the ecosystem layer of complexity. To do this, we must use an atomic approach to accurately reflect the ecosystem layer in our management systems, incorporating all of the components that make up our ecosystems.
With the ecosystem layer represented in our models, we may properly calculate and monitor ecosystem functioning. And our ability to manage or steer outcomes will be truly improved. This is what makes innovations such as SEED of great importance, alongside other initiatives. The outcomes will be more effective ecological governance, and a hybrid ecological – economic framework that can bring about widespread Nature positive behaviour, despite the current BAU setting.
The capacity for green growth ultimately depends on:
- Governance capacities for ecological evaluation, protection and policy integration
- Nature Protected Areas, where longer term protection and restoration can take priority
- Over time, moving from BAU to BAER (Business Adaptation and Environment Restoration)
Section 2 – The BAU Status Quo
As an established global population, we suffer from non-sustainability – disjointed and insufficient governance and ecological management of our natural resources. As a growing global population, our soils, agricultural lands, water resources and biodiversity continue to degrade – to meet the added infrastructural requirements of an ever-increasing population. As with climate change and temperature, there are system feedback effects or syndromes that take time to come through.
Population growth is global in nature, so these system changes are incremental and occurring all over the world. Even in dryland regions with lower population densities, the same non-sustainability exists.
Large management gaps exist, meaning that key resources (land, water) are unprotected and degraded further, even when we are implementing and operating sustainable policies. The frequency and impacts of such changes are amplified in developing countries.
Source: Syndromes of Global Change – Lüdeke, Petschel-Held and Schellnhuber (2004)
Source: Schellnhuber et al. (1997) – Syndromes of global change
Existing Syndromes of Non-Sustainability
“Most high-quality agricultural land is already in production, and the environmental costs of converting remaining forest, grassland, and wetland habitats to cropland are well recognized. . . . Much of the remaining soil is less productive and more fragile. . . . One analysis of global soil erosion estimates that, depending on the region, topsoil is currently being lost 16 to 300 times faster than it can be replaced.”
World Resources Institute, 1998
Local governance systems will prevent egregious cases of environmental harm, but typically do not stand in the way of human development ‘progress’. There are more land use changes every year, to add to the existing burden of non-sustainability. Through urban and rural developments, more lands are bought and adapted for agriculture, housing and other practices that, over time, degrade the land. More and more health impacts are felt as we also contaminate water supplies and pollute the public commons.
This deleterious system has been with us since the mass production phase of humanity, fed by more and more products (and by-products) – fertilisers, fossil fuels, pesticides and other non-organics.
On top of this comes the new challenge of climate change, with local impacts that could make for enhanced states of system degradation, and ultimately a loss of some key ecosystem services. This is already occurring in some parts of the world, where infrastructure and systems are less robust and less well-funded.
In summary, a disjointed world system that has many excellent management systems, but still facilitates degradation. Human development still trumps Nature conservation. In financial terms, Nature is consistently marginalised for a range of development and economic gains. And now a new global stressor – climate change – that may take the level of non-sustainability to new heights.
World Models of Non-Sustainability
“With few exceptions, economics as a discipline has been dominated by a perception of living in an unlimited world, where resource and pollution problems in one area were solved by moving resources or people to other parts. The very hint of any global limitation as suggested in the report The Limits to Growth was met with disbelief and rejection by businesses and most economists. However, this conclusion was mostly based on false premises.”
Meyer & Nørgård (2010)
Limits to Growth (1972)
We have to go back to 1972 to find the first world model focused on the carrying capacity of the planet. Commissioned by The Club of Rome, a two-year study at MIT was carried out to investigate the long-term causes and consequences of growth in population, industrial capital, food production, resource consumption, and pollution. The World3 model comprised all of these as five interacting sub-systems. Each of which were assumed to continue to grow (exponentially). Two of the model scenarios saw “overshoot and collapse” of the global system by the mid- to latter-part of the 21st century. A third saw a “stabilized world”.
Although relatively basic modelling, the prophetic World3 model has shown close alignment to today’s pathways, some 5 decades later. The model and the accompanying “Limits to Growth” book (Donella Meadows et al. 1972) were from a time of strong and continuous post-WW2 growth. Global population was growing fast. Living standards were rising. Industrial mechanisation was driving gains in productivity. An age of abundance and optimism where the limits to growth, if any, were way in the future. And even then, there would be technological solutions to solve them.
In 1972, the world’s population and economy were still comfortably within the carrying capacity of the planet. Despite the general mindset of the time, the model demonstrated that there were limits to growth and these would hit home in the foreseeable future.
Beyond the Limits to Growth (1992)
By 1992, this was no longer true. The team updated their work in Beyond the Limits. By now, there was compelling evidence that humanity was moving deeper into unsustainable territory. In many areas we had already “overshot” our limits – our demands on the planet’s resources and sinks were beyond what could be sustained over time. The main challenge was how to move the world back into sustainable territory.
“The three causes of overshoot are always the same, at any scale from personal to planetary. First, there is growth, acceleration, rapid change. Second, there is some form of limit or barrier, beyond which the moving system may not safely go. Third, there is a delay or mistake in the perceptions and the responses that try to keep the system within its limits.”
Meadows et al., Beyond the Limits to Growth, 1992
The 30-Year Update (2002)
A new study Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, gave a comprehensive update to the original, concluding that humanity was in a state of dangerous overshoot. Humanity had squandered the opportunity to correct course, and had to change to avoid the serious consequences of overshoot in the 21st century.
With some very insightful charts, some of which we also see in IPCC Reports.
“All of our problems arise out of doing the wrong thing righter … The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better.”
The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
Russell Ackoff, Systems thinker and Author
Historical Trends
Two hundred years ago, world population was just 1 billion, and average caloric consumption was possibly as low as 1800-2200 calories/day in the most advanced countries in Europe. Worldwide, there was risk of starvation – the 19th century saw a number of famines. A huge increase in agricultural production changed this, and this has continued ever since. According to the FAO, world output increased by 60% from 1938 to the late 1950s, and more than doubled again by 2001.
Yet food security remains a major issue for many countries, as depicted in the recent FSIN Global Report on Food Crises.
Alongside the growth in agriculture, the post-WW2 period saw a step change in the potential for substances to be released into the environment, particularly in agriculture. Use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and fungicides became widespread during the 1950s. Only later did the downsides become clear – such as eutrophication /water pollution, soil acidification, loss of soil carbon /organic matter, and increasing pest resistance.
The ‘dilute and disperse’ environmental management approach of the time was based on the seemingly unlimited absorbing capacity of the world’s atmospheric, land and marine pollution sinks. The focus was on setting limits as to the rate of release, rather than the total amount released. Only in recent decades have we seen new laws and regulations concerning Groundwater, Pollution and Waste.
And over time, the overexploitation of water resources has led to a new crisis in groundwater availability and related problems such as toxicity. Another structural problem that will require a structural water supply solution – seawater desalination.
Winkler et al (2021) mapped global land use changes over a 60-year period (1960-2019), showing them to be much greater than previously estimated. Even in the age of satellites, the mapping of global land use/cover (LUC) has been constrained by a lack of comprehensive data and large uncertainties in existing LUC reconstructions.
An interesting recent paper by Oakland et al (2024) maps the historic rate of human modification, while also identifying where land conversion might occur in future, based on land conversion pressure from multiple drivers (the conversion pressure index).
Lastly, Pravalie et al. (2024) produce a Land Degradation Drivers analysis, applying a Land Multi-degradation Index. They find that up to 27%, 35% and 22% of continental agricultural and arable lands in Europe are threatened by one, two, and three drivers of degradation respectively. And 10–11% of European agricultural/arable landscapes are affected by four or more concurrent processes.
Section 3 – Water and the Restoration of Nature
“I do not wish to seem overdramatic, but I can only conclude from the information that is available to me as Secretary-General, that the Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems I have mentioned will have reached such staggering proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control.”
U Thant, UN Secretary-General, 1972
The fate of the global economy and its future growth (BAU) are inextricably tied to the fate of our natural assets – our forests, water systems, plants and ecosystems. These are finite and damage may be irreparable if we continue to damage them through our BAU activities. While there are significant efforts to sustainably manage these resources, the decline continues.
Globally, habitats and biodiversity are declining faster than at any other time. And climate change is bringing a greater nonlinearity to BAU. We have altered the environment to an unparalleled degree, affecting all ecosystems. Ecological communities and biodiversity are increasingly at a tipping point, beyond which survival and basic food and water security become increasingly challenging.
It is time to fully protect and restore our ecosystems, not more of the same. Maintaining high biodiversity and ecosystem health is the best way to maintain resilience and to recover from the increasing twin impacts of climate change and BAU. Protecting and restoring natural assets that provide ecosystem services – particularly primary forests, seagrasses, wetlands and peatlands, and through re-greening of landscapes.
To accomplish this, we need to solve the freshwater availability problem.
Freshwater Availability
Roughly half of the world’s population experience severe water scarcity for at least one month of the year. In the early to mid-2010s, 1.9 billion people lived in potential severely water-scarce areas. By 2050, this number will increase to 2.7-3.2 billion. About 73% of people affected by water scarcity presently live in Asia.
- In lower-income countries, poor water quality is an issue – due to low levels of wastewater treatment. As of 2022, 2.2 billion people were without access to safely managed drinking water, and 3.5 billion people were without access to safely managed sanitation.
- In higher-income countries, agricultural runoff and water contaminants are the most serious problems. Water contaminants include pharmaceuticals, hormones, industrial chemicals, detergents, cyanotoxins, PFAS and nanomaterials.
Globally, groundwater is critical for meeting human and ecosystem water needs, especially in drylands, which comprise roughly 40% of global land area and support more than two billion people. Serving as a buffer when surface water and rainfall are insufficient, groundwater is particularly relied on in dryland regions and increasingly important in meeting higher water demands under a warming climate.
Despite groundwater accounting for most liquid freshwater on Earth, groundwater depletion is occurring rapidly in many places throughout the globe.
- The importance of groundwater systems is generally under-represented in the UN SDGs. Best practice jurisdictions (e.g. EU, California, Australia) may have requirements for ecologic water or an evaluation of ecosystem effects. But even here protection may fall short, due to decision-making that prioritizes human over ecosystem needs, or related issues such as absence of water rights regimes, or lack of consensus on groundwater targets.
- In the race to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, protection strategies often overlook the significance of groundwater systems and other ecosystems-supporting commons that support local biodiversity and functions such as climate regulation.
Groundwater is the most ubiquitous source of liquid freshwater globally, yet its role in supporting diverse ecosystems is rarely acknowledged. The location and extent of groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are unknown in many geographies, and protection measures are lacking.
- Although GDEs occur across many biomes, they are of greatest concern in drylands, where near-surface water availability is limited compared to humid environments. GDEs are present on more than one-third of global drylands, including important global biodiversity hotspots (Rohde et al. 2024)
- Many GDEs are likely to have already been lost due to water and land use practices
- Effects on GDEs can adversely affect a wide range of benefits they provide to society, including subsistence livelihoods, water quality regulation, streambank stabilization, flood risk reduction, climate regulation, recreational opportunities and cultural values.
- 85% of protected areas (Huggins et al, 2023) with groundwater-dependent ecosystems have groundwatersheds that are underprotected, i.e. some portion of the groundwatershed lies outside of the protected area.
Freshwater demand and use
- Worldwide, agriculture accounts for c. 70% of freshwater withdrawals, followed by industry (just under 20%) and domestic (or municipal) uses (about 12%).
- Groundwater supplies about 25% of all water used for irrigation and half of the freshwater withdrawn for domestic purposes.
- Increasing water demand follows population growth, economic development and changing consumption patterns. Global water demand has increased 600% over the past 100 years (1.8% pa on average), with sub-1% growth reported since 1960 (this may be understated).
- Water demand will grow significantly across all sectors – industry, domestic and agriculture. Industrial and domestic demand will grow faster than agricultural demand, although agricultural demand will remain the largest. Industrial demand is 75% energy production, 25% manufacturing. Municipal water demand has seen a large increase relative to other sectors – this will continue as populations urbanize, and water supply and sanitation systems expand.
Freshwater demand will explode, as we seek to deal with three global issues:
– a world population that is still growing (to a forecast peak population of 10-11 billion)
– an agricultural sector that must fundamentally move to more sustainable /regenerative agriculture, while providing food security for such population
– a nature sector that must safeguard ecosystems in the face of threats from climate change, with back-up water usage to protect and restore affected lands
Alongside these fundamental changes in demand, freshwater supply will also be disrupted. Climate change will affect both the distribution and timing of water availability, with progressively more intensity in the weather. Similar to the tragic weather extremes already being experienced all over the world. But in future they will be even more pronounced and with greater human impact. More droughts (and prolonged dry seasons), more wildfires, and more volatile atmospheric water patterns.
On the other hand, seawater supplies will be on the increase, as we seek to ensure stable supplies all over the world. Water infrastructure will increasingly need to take from the sea. Sea level rise will bring over-sustainability of seawater supply. So much supply that we will struggle to deal with the net sea level rises in future centuries.
Desalination in the 21st century
Water scarcity has typically been addressed via engineering and infrastructure. Reservoirs are commonly used to store excess water and supply water to cities, to avoid water shortages during dry periods. Desalination plants are increasingly used to solve water deficit problems. For cities where local water resources cannot meet demand, inter-basin water transfer can also be an option.
For the current century, a global desalination plan is needed – expanding the global fleet of desalination plants. For future centuries we will also need to plan for how we will deal with 2m, then 4m, then 10m+ of sea level rise.
Desalination plants are not particularly cheap – it would be better to simply restore Nature and the water cycle at a fraction of the cost. However, we will definitely need a back-up water solution given where we already are. We are forced on the path of building much greater desalination processing capability, and the water pipelines infrastructure to go with it – to minimise evaporation of processed water, for mass water storage, and for delivery to the lands and populations that need it.
With cheaper, solar-powered desalination capacity becoming the likely norm going forwards, pricing will get cheaper. Technology improvements will also incrementally assist – in terms of energy usage and processing capability. Desalination plants will take different forms and sizes – to be deployed wherever needed on coasts all over the world. With a network of water pipelines to connect and consolidate the supply to all protected and restored lands. The restoration of an increasingly dry Amazon and the Sahara region in particular.
Welcome to the Great Desalination!
The Economics of Water
The GCEW presents a framework to drive radical change in how water is valued, governed and used. At its centre is the recognition that the hydrological cycle is a global common good, which we can safeguard through concerted action and collaboration across sectors and scales, from local to global.
Some charts and recommendations from the excellent Economics of Water Report (2024).
Summary of Recommendations – Economics of Water Report (2024)
1. Govern the hydrological cycle as a global common good, recognising our interdependence through both blue and green water flows; the deepening interconnections between the water crisis, climate change, and the loss of the planet’s natural capital.
2. Recognise the minimal water requirements of water for a dignified life. New water provision should focus on those left behind first.
3. Value water, the Earth’s most precious resource, to reflect its scarcity, ensure its efficient and equitable use, and preserve its critical role in sustaining all other natural ecosystems. Account for the impacts of industrial, national and global development on both blue and green water resources. Embed the value of green water systematically in decisions on land use so as to better protect evapotranspiration hotspots such as forests, wetlands, and watersheds.
4. Capacity-building and investments across the entire water cycle, including blue and green water, to radically transform how water is used, supplied, and conserved. These investments must be evaluated not in terms of short-run costs and benefits, but for how they can catalyse dynamic, long-run economic and social benefits.
5. Forge partnerships between all stakeholders around five missions:
• Launch a new revolution in food systems to improve water productivity in agriculture
• Conserve and restore natural habitats critical to protect green water.
• Establish a circular water economy, including changes in industrial processes.
• Enable a clean-energy and AI-rich era with much lower water intensity.
• Ensure that no child dies from unsafe water by 2030, by securing the reliable supply of potable water and sanitation for underserved communities.
6. Forge symbiotic partnerships between the public and private sectors to deliver efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable use of water from the start. Governments should incorporate conditionalities in contracts and property rights to ensure high standards of water use efficiency and environmental protection, including responsibility for watershed and water basin conservation programmes.
7. Raise the quantity, quality and reliability of finance for water in every sector. Government budgets must reprioritise investments in water, and repurpose today’s environmentally harmful subsidies, estimated at over US$700 billion p.a. in agriculture, water and sanitation.
• Development finance institutions (DFIs) – national, regional, and multilateral – must be regeared to provide catalytic finance to unlock vastly greater amounts of private finance, including more patient finance for water infrastructure projects.
8. Harness data as a foundation for action by governments, businesses, and communities. • Work towards a new global water data infrastructure, building on and strengthening capacities for data collection on blue and green water at every level of the water cycle.
• Accelerate efforts toward market based disclosure of corporate water footprints, and expedite work towards regulatory standards for mandatory disclosure.
• Value water as natural capital to enable responsible stewardship of freshwater ecosystems.
9. Build global water governance that values water as an organising principle, recognises that water is both a local and global issue, and that the hydrological cycle encompassing both blue and green water is a collective and systemic challenge. he ultimate ambition should be the establishment of a Global Water Pact that sets clear and measurable goals to stabilise the water cycle and safeguard the world’s water resources. Water and its values should be anchored in every convention – climate, biodiversity, wetlands, and desertification, and UN agreement, with clear goals and targets.
Laws and Commitments to counter the Decline in Nature
Over recent decades, we have seen new intensity in creation and adoption of Nature Positive laws and regulations. Many of these are relatively new, but the comprehensiveness of the overall framework is encouraging.
Science Based Target Setting – In the context of GHG emissions and Net Zero, Net Zero pledges now cover 92% of global GDP and 88% of global emissions. Despite this, the definition of net-zero and the action path are open to interpretation, fueling confusion and greenwashing concerns. The Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) Net Zero criteria address this problem by providing a science-based definition of Net Zero. By aligning with this Standard, companies can set science-based Net Zero targets. Over 6000 businesses have signed up so far.
The Corporate Net Zero Standard criteria apply to companies not classified as financial institutions or SMEs. Financial institutions must set targets using the Draft Financial Institution Net Zero Standard (FINZ) and financial sector guidance. Companies must also follow the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, Scope 2 Guidance, and Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard.
A sharp edge will also be required alongside, to make all of these initiatives as effective as possible. Introducing the crime of ecocide is one such measure, with a number of countries already incorporating ecocide into their national law.
Other developments will include the granting of legal rights to key biodiversity areas and/or their indigenous stewards.
And as above, a biodiversity inventory and status framework, in order to provide the necessary evidence that we are achieving the right outcomes.
Legal Actions
Courts around the world are hearing an ever-growing number of climate-change lawsuits – with some landmark cases this year and next.
International Tribunal for the Law Of the Sea (ITLOS) – The international ocean court recently ruled that GHG emissions absorbed by the ocean are a form of marine pollution, subject to international controls. Small-island nations that brought the case hailed the decision as giving teeth to global climate change law. The court opined that states are legally obliged to take all measures necessary to limit the rise in average global temperature to the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Countries are also obliged to protect marine environments, even if they must go beyond the Paris requirements to do so.
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – April 2024 saw the ECHR rule that Switzerland had violated the rights of 2000 senior women, by not doing enough to combat climate change. Unlike other multilateral courts that are issuing advisory opinions, the ECHR case was a contentious lawsuit with a legally binding ruling – ordering Switzerland to revise its climate policies. The case establishes legal precedent for 46 countries that are ECHR signatories. The court has 7 similar cases, including 2 that would directly impact Norway’s oil industry.
International Court of Justice (ICJ) – After an extension of time limits, the ICJ is expected to issue an advisory opinion later this year on UN member states’ obligations in addressing climate change. The UN General Assembly made the request following a 4 year campaign by Vanuatu.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) – The largest climate case to date, with 262 submitted legal briefs and over 600 participants, with hearings in Barbados and Brazil. As a more progressive court, the IACHR could go further than its peers to set new standards relating to national obligations around climate change. For example, protections for environmental defenders facing violence, fossil fuels as a key climate change culprit, or the obligation of states to regulate polluters. The court’s opinion is expected by end 2024 with immediate application to the 20 member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
South Korea Constitutional Court – Asia’s first climate lawsuit in a national court combining 5 different petitions into one case – arguing that South Korea failed to protect more than 200 people from climate change. The petitioners include young activists, children and infants. In Aug 2024, the Court declared parts of the Carbon Neutrality Act unconstitutional, a landmark ruling in global climate litigation. The Court ruled that the Act failed to set GHG reduction targets beyond 2030, effectively passing the burden of climate action to future generations. This is the first time climate change has been recognised as a constitutional rights issue in South Korea, and the rights of future generations have been explicitly acknowledged.
Australia: Torres Strait Islander Class Action – The first class-action lawsuit brought by Australian First Nations people, arguing the state failed to protect them from climate change. The plaintiffs live on the remote islands of Boigu and Saibai, in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea. They argue that Australia’s inaction on climate change means rising sea levels will destroy their homes and ultimately the submergence of their islands.
A Blueprint for Ecological Management and Policy Frameworks
There will always be levels of real world slippage in adoption of and adherence to standards and processes. Countermeasures to this include improving standards over time and large scale restoration, as further drivers of improvement.
The below blueprint incorporates several countermeasures:
- National Sustainable Development that explicitly accounts for Ecological outcomes and large scale Protection and Restoration Programs
- Explicit requirements for Ecosystems Sustainability, through growth in Natural Capital Inventories
- Ecosystem Improvements through a new pillar – Ecosystems Sustainability – alongside Environmental Sustainability.
- New Capacity and Infrastructure Programs – To address future water demand and water stresses, the building of much greater water capacity and water infrastructure – to support urban and agricultural environments, Nature Protection and Restoration Programs.
Conclusion
Our global challenge is to integrate the management and monitoring of our natural resources, so that we may in future manage them with greater effectiveness.
- Integrated ecological management and policing systems. Governance policies that actually work – for sustainable management, ecological protection and restoration – of soils, air, water systems and biodiversity.
- Governance systems that are integrated across all natural assets and resources – local, national and international.
- Open source interconnected tools and databases for biodiversity monitoring and management, protective and restorative actions. Technological solutions that can be implemented everywhere, and monitored and supported from anywhere.
- Management systems that are robust and standardised – soil systems, water resources systems, biodiversity measurement and monitoring systems, science-based standards.
System change requires a combination of diverse initiatives:
1. Nature governance and transition pathways
2. Focus on Ecological Management and Sustainability, with Inventory Monitoring
3. Natural Capital valuation and accounting. Payments for ecosystem services
4. Environmental Taxes / Natural resource taxes
5. New Environmental Laws and Protections
6. Truly Sustainable Quotas to minimise overconsumption and overuse
7. Global funding and funding stability, with a new, diversified Environmental Funds sector
Above all, the costs of the above actions are a fraction of those already being incurred as a result of climate change. So there is real economic logic to funding the upgrades envisaged. Mitigation costs are always a fraction of unmitigated costs later on.
The Rising Cost of Inaction
Recent posts:
Man-Earth system problems and solutions – Part 3 24.11.2024
Towards Ecologically Wiser Management Systems
Introducing a new blueprint for the ecological transition. As the new tools and systems needed for biodiversity measurement and valuation come online, true sustainability is not far away.
Man-Earth system problems and solutions – Part 2 17.11.2024
The Great Restoration of Nature – Nature and Water
Nature is still the best carbon removal and climate change solution we have. And water is the best protector and regenerator of Nature. As the COP process meets new hurdles, how will the new Nature and Climate solutions actually work?
Man-Earth system problems and solutions – Part 1 10.11.2024
The Great Restoration of Nature – A Proposed Global Environmental Framework
An examination of global system problems and potential solutions. Nature is still the best carbon removal and climate change solution we have. As Nations remain stuck in their orbits and revisit old ground, new structural Climate Finance commitments and solutions must take precedence.
An Update on the 2024 COPs 1.11.2024
Global Nature Financing – As we enter November and with COP 29 just under 2 weeks away, a brief run down of the recent COP events and publications/ announcements. Also the upcoming UNCCD COP16 in Riyadh – the biennial forum for reviewing progress to combat desertification.
Nature Protection in 2045 – The Impending Necessity of Nature Funding 27.10.2024
The Global Call for Ecosystem Restoration continued – In this decisive decade, our challenge is to scale up conservation, restoration and Nature Protected Areas. Greater finance for Nature is the goal – And it may come from some unexpected sources!
The 2024 COPs and Climate Finance Solutions 20.10.2024
Global Climate Financing – The 2024 COPs provide the opportunity to garner much greater commitments for climate action. The way forward is to create a centralised Environmental Funds sector – with ongoing funding that is automatic, rather than piecemeal and hard-fought.
Restoring Nature’s Green and Blue Lungs 13.10.2024
A Global Call for Ecosystem Restoration – There has never been a more urgent need to restore ecosystems than now. In this decisive decade, the challenge is to scale up the quantity and quality of projects, and redirect greater finance to nature, for as much impact as possible.
Beyond Normal – The Mechanisms behind our Extreme Weather 3.10.2024
The sheer number and severity of recent extreme weather events is a sign of things to come. With COP29 just a month away, what are the world’s leaders going to do about it?
COP29 and New Climate Finance Initiatives 2.10.2024
With just 6 weeks to go, the world’s nations are set to decide on a new climate-finance goal, to go beyond the $100 billion per year target set at COP15 in 2009.
Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Global Warming Solutions 25.09.2024
Alongside the massive expansion (and funding) of land restoration and regenerative agriculture schemes and the reduction of CO2, are other solutions on the horizon?
Restoring Natural Capital, Diversity and Resilience 21.09.2024
Despite a slew of international accords over the past three decades, along with 28 COPs, the rate of decline continues. Focus has diverted away from direct physical solutions, towards technology & market solutions supporting decarbonisation. Yet we have the solutions and available funding.
The Environmental Imperative 15.9.2024
The tipping risk elements of the Earth system, their nature and interdependence, and how to mitigate these risks going forwards
Appendix 1
Selected Tools and Systems for Ecological Management
Current tools are increasing in quantity and quality, as organisations grapple with new environmental regulations and commitments. For corporates there are environmental footprint and life cycle impact calculators, related to their value chains, products and activities.
For ecological management across regions, top-down tools can provide a macro footprint, enabling better vision for (i) ecozone mapping interdependencies; (ii) ecosystem analyses and (iii) processing of bottom-up databases. From a land use perspective, the main bases to cover are urban footprint and agricultural footprint.
Natural capital inventory keeping and biodiversity metrics are the next level, enabling us to build Natural Capital Accounting frameworks and predict changes in biodiversity. This will be a major contribution to true sustainability.
Accounting for the value of nature is complex and not something that should be market-traded as such. That might do a lot of systemic harm, given the track record of economic systems to prioritise profits over nature. Rather, the approach should be focused on protection and evaluation of biodiversity and the services provided by Nature.
1. SEED System – SEED is the New South Wales (Australia) Government system for sharing and enabling Environmental Data. It was developed for the NSW community in a collaborative effort between government agencies to provide an accessible and reliable platform for environmental data. The SEED data portal contains a wealth of data on:
2. Agri-Footprint – Agri-Footprint is a commercial database life cycle inventory (LCI) system relating to agricultural products: feed, food and biomass/ agricultural intermediate products. It supports both type A (micro-level decision support) and type C (accounting) applications, including interactions with other systems (C1 and C2), per European ILCD guidelines. Agri-footprint is based on an attributional approach, and does not aim to support type B (“Meso/macro-level decision support”) processes affected by large-scale consequences.
The latest version Agri-footprint 6.3, covers a range of impact categories including those related to water, land use, land use change, fertilizers and pesticides:
3. Blonk Sustainability
The above Agri-footprint is part of the Blonk Sustainability offering, supporting organizations in understanding their environmental impact in the agrifood value chain. The offering (see below) includes advisory services and tailored science-based software and data tools.
Since 2023 Blonk is part of Mérieux NutriSciences group, with a global position in environmental footprinting. The enlarged team includes 8400 staff (including agri-food and sustainability experts, software engineers, data and methodology specialists) across LCA and Environmental footprinting – with over 100 accredited laboratories in 25 countries.
- Environmental footprinting – Conducting Product or Corporate LCAs and Carbon footprint studies, involving large scale data collection
- Environmental standards development – Harmonizing environmental calculation rules for sectors and industries.
- Sustainability Target Setting – Support for sustainability targets and GHG emission reductions
- Sustainable diets – Research into futureproof diets that are both healthy and sustainable
- Capacity building: training & courses – Knowledge transfer to accelerate sustainable development
- Secondment: Interim LCA Support – Growing an organisation’s sustainability and knowledge capacity
- Tailor-made environmental calculation tools – Supporting insights into the environmental performance of products
- Sustainability software solutions – Tailor-made and ready-to-use solutions to evaluate the environmental impact of agri-food systems
- Environmental databases – Development of reliable, qualitative environmental (LCA) databases, such as Agri-footprint
- Environmental data development – Development of high-quality (LCA) environmental datasets for environmental analysis
4. Nature Map Explorer
Nature Map (in beta format) contains some macro-level mapping of terrestrial habitats, natural vegetation, and species richness. The maps aim to support the design and planning of policies aimed at limiting biodiversity loss and net GHG emissions from land use, in an integrated manner. The set of maps cover biodiversity and ecosystems services, including carbon, based on the best available scientific data. The data is curated by UNEP-WCMC and will also be freely accessible via the UN Biodiversity Lab. All data and findings will be subjected to independent scientific peer review.
5. SEED Index
A new initiative from the team at ETHZ, providing a scalable framework for biodiversity metrics – the quantification, measurement and valuation of biodiversity.
The SEED Index reflects the biocomplexity of ecosystems relative to their natural state. A rating of 1 means the ecosystem is in a natural state. A rating of 0 means a completely degraded ecosystem with no biological complexity. The closer a site is to 1, the more regenerative and resilient it is likely to be.
THE SEED Index thus reflects nature’s complexity across multiple scales (genetic, species and ecosystem levels), providing a scientifically-valid and scalable solution for biodiversity measurement, that can be used by any organisation for its impact measurement and reporting obligations. Integrating multiple spatial datasets across all levels of biodiversity into a single metric. And thus enabling the quantification of both negative impacts and positive impacts (conservation and restoration) on small and large scales.
6. EU-HYDI database
The European Hydropedological Data Inventory (EU-HYDI) contains soil properties with a special focus on hydrological properties. It also includes various other measured soil characteristics associated to the same samples. It can hence serve multiple purposes, including scientific research, modelling and application of models at different geographical scales. The dataset consists of 10 interlinked CSV files.
European Soil Database (ESDB)
Soil Functions data
Soil Threats data
7. Nature Serve
NatureServe is the hub for a network of 60+ governmental and non-governmental programs located in the US and Canada. The Network’s mission is to protect and conserve the plants, animals and ecosystems in their jurisdictions. Assessing their status, risk and condition; planning and measuring results. Network programs and their staff number over 1000 conservation professionals with a wide-array of expertise, such as ecologists, zoologists, botanists and data specialists.
Nature Serve’s data management tool is called Biotics. Data is compiled, managed and analysed and shared throughout the Network as tools, products and services.
The Nature Serve Network (with hyperlinks)
Alabama Natural Heritage Program
Alaska Center for Conservation Science
Alberta Conservation Information Management Centre and Data Access Website
Arizona Heritage Data Management System and Data Access Website
Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission
Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre and Data Access Website
British Columbia Conservation Data Centre and Data Access Website
California Natural Diversity Database
Centre de Donnees sur le Patrimoine Naturel du Québec
Colorado Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Connecticut Natural Diversity Database
Delaware Species Conservation and Research Program
District of Columbia Fisheries & Wildlife
División de Patrimonio Natural, Puerto Rico
Florida Natural Areas Inventory
Georgia Wildlife Conservation Section
Hawai’i Biodiversity & Mapping Program
Idaho Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Illinois Natural Heritage Database Program
Indiana Natural Heritage Data Center
Iowa Natural Areas Inventory and Data Access Website
Kansas Natural Heritage Inventory and Data Access Website
Louisiana Wildlife Diversity Program and Data Access Website
Maine Natural Areas Program
Manitoba Conservation Data Centre and Data Access Website
Maryland Natural Heritage Program
Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program
Michigan Natural Features Inventory
Minnesota Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Mississippi Natural Heritage Program
Missouri Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Montana Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Natural Heritage New Mexico and Data Access Website
NatureServe
NatureServe Canada
Navajo Natural Heritage Program
Nebraska Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Nevada Division of Natural Heritage and Data Access Website
New Hampshire Natural Heritage Bureau
New Jersey Natural Heritage Program
New York Natural Heritage Program
North Carolina Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
North Dakota Natural Heritage Inventory
Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves and Data Access Website
Ohio Natural Heritage Database
Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory
Ontario Natural Heritage Information Centre and Data Access Website
Oregon Biodiversity Information Center and Data Access Website
Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Rhode Island Natural History Survey
Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre and Data Access Website
South Carolina Heritage Trust
South Dakota Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Tennessee Division of Natural Areas and Data Access Website
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Wildlife Diversity Branch
The Nature Conservancy (Texas Chapter)
TVA Natural Heritage Project
Utah Natural Heritage Program
Vermont Natural Heritage Inventory
Virginia Division of Natural Heritage and Data Access Website
Washington Natural Heritage Program
West Virginia Natural Heritage Program
Wisconsin Natural Heritage Program and Data Access Website
Wyoming Natural Diversity Database and Data Access Website
Yukon Conservation Data Centre and Data Access Website
8. Climate TRACE coalition
The Climate TRACE coalition compiles monthly inventories of all global emissions (power sector, shipping etc) – GHG and non-GHG pollution emissions. A current total of 660 million individual sources of pollution/ emissions are in the combined data set – complied from satellites, AI/ big data, sensors, including emissions from ‘dark’ / unreported sources. Enabling the tracking for example, of fine particulate pollution on a local scale, ‘dark’ emissions, and variability in national emissions by region. The updated open source database comprises emissions inventories for every state and province as well as more than 9,000 urban areas.
9. BioMonitor4CAP project
Funded by the EU Horizon Europe program, the BioMonitor4CAP project runs from Dec 2022 to end Nov 2026. It will design biodiversity monitoring systems to measure biodiversity in the fields. Combining classical biodiversity indicator systems with new technological approaches. The goal is to provide knowledge, methods and tools to support the transformation of agricultural systems.
With 23 partners in 10 European countries and Peru, the project includes a multi-disciplinary team consisting of ecologists, agronomists, ornithologists, entomologists, soil scientists, biochemists, geo-spatial data experts, acoustic data experts, data scientists, social scientist and economists and conservationists.
