Nature is the solution to climate change!

Posted on 25 April 2023

We are enriched by nature, which provides us with the benefits on which we depend on a daily basis. Indeed, although we are not always aware of it, nature is much more indispensable than we think. Yes, it is not only our phones that count! Faced with climate change, which in the long term could impact the planet irreversibly, we have natural, economically viable, low-cost and sustainable solutions known as "Nature-based solutions".

According to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), nature-based solutions refer to: "actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems to directly address societal challenges in an effective and adaptive manner, while ensuring human well-being and producing benefits for biodiversity. Nature-based solutions address three types of actions:

1) Preservation of functional ecosystems in good ecological condition
2) Improved management of ecosystems for sustainable use by human activities
3) Restoration of degraded ecosystems or creation of ecosystems.

Ecosystems are large carbon reservoirs which, if protected and preserved, help mitigate the impacts of climate change and therefore contribute to human well-being. On a global scale, they absorb about half of the CO2 emissions generated by human activities each year and thus constitute solutions, mainly, for climate regulation on the one hand, and risk and disaster reduction on the other hand.

Solution for climate control

Healthy ecosystems help capture and sequester carbon over the long term, avoiding the massive carbon emissions that cause temperature rise
Sustainable and effective management of protected areas is one of the strategies recognized by the IPCC in meeting carbon reduction targets by 2030. Protected areas can address the main cause of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing impacts through the maintenance of key functions. Managing ecosystems as carbon sinks combined with adaptation measures are necessary, effective and relatively inexpensive strategies by which a 0.5°C warming could be avoided.

Solution to reduce risks and disasters

Ecosystems, especially wetlands, contribute to mitigating the intensity of floods and thus reduce the associated damage and loss of human life
The protection of coastal ecosystems represents a natural tool for risk management, with a potential for innovative solutions for the actors concerned