Nature based solutions for climate change

‘Nature-based solutions’ (NbS) are actions to protect, conserve and restore the natural world while simultaneously benefitting and society. These approaches harness nature to address issues such as climate change, and can also contribute to improvements in health and wellbeing, development, and infrastructure (for example, flood protection).

How can NbS address climate change?

The natural world is an integral part of the climate system. Biodiversity loss and climate change are inextricably tied to one another. An international high-level review of the scientific evidence for the link between biodiversity loss and climate change conducted by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services suggests that governments across the world have, to date, underestimated or ignored this interdependence, and that policy should address both issues together.

NbS have a role in addressing climate change, through both mitigation and adaptation. This briefing sets out how NbS can deliver these outcomes, including through case study examples.

Mitigation

‘Mitigation’ refers to actions to prevent or reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address the underlying causes of climate change. Examples of NbS that can mitigate climate change include increasing carbon storage and sequestration, through actions such as afforestation (tree planting), as well as preventing the release of carbon from the atmosphere, through actions such as peatland restoration.

Adaptation

‘Adaptation’ refers to actions required to manage the effects of unavoidable climate change. Examples of NbS that can deliver climate change adaptation include creating new intertidal habitats to reduce exposure to risks such as coastal change and flooding, and using green infrastructure in cities to increase resilience to temperature extremes.

NbS policies

There are international and national policies governing action on both climate change and nature restoration. These include high level multilateral agreements under the UN Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as national strategies to address climate change and tackle biodiversity loss.

The government has expressed support for NbS for climate change, describing work to join up action on adaptation, mitigation and nature restoration as a “whole of government effort”.

The independent Climate Change Committee, the government’s statutory advisory body, has said that NbS are crucial for meeting upcoming carbon budgets and strengthening climate change adaptation. The Office for Environmental Protection, the government’s environmental watchdog, has also set out concerns about habitat conditions and invasive species for long-term climate change resilience, calling for greater efforts to address shared challenges.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are responsible for setting the overarching policy direction on climate change.

Funding for NbS

Direct government funding for nature restoration is largely delivered through Defra and the non-departmental public bodies and executives that it sponsors (such as the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency).

Private investment in NbS is channelled through compliance with government schemes, including biodiversity net gain and the Nature Restoration Fund, voluntary schemes such as the Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code, and emerging private nature markets (the sale and purchase of ‘ecosystem services’: elements of the natural world that are beneficial to human life, such as oxygen, food and clean water).

Commentary

Parliamentary and wider stakeholder commentary is generally supportive of NbS for climate change, with calls for stronger policy (PDF), clearer regulatory direction and increased funding.