Nature-based solutions to climate change

The big focus in the net zero debates so far has been on emissions – in particular emissions from coal- and gas-fired power stations, and from vehicles, aviation and shipping. That really matters, but it is only half the story: the carbon in the atmosphere is the balance of emissions and the sequestration of carbon by nature – by trees, grasses, vegetation, salt marches, and the oceans. By burning down the rainforests and stripping the carbon out from the soils, we’ve been messing up the ability of nature to do its job. This second in my series of podcasts sets out the scale of the damage we’ve been doing to nature’s toolkit, and describes what we need to do to move on from destroying nature’s capacity to help solve climate change, to getting it back on track, with the multiple other natural capital benefits that will come too. It is about carbon offsets, carbon markets, and baseline carbon assessments. It is about an environmental policy fit for the net zero agenda, which is now taking centre stage.