THE ECONOMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY
Human well-being is dependent upon "ecosystem services" provided by nature for free, such as water and air purification, fisheries, timber and nutrient cycling. These are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so their loss often is not detected by our current economic incentive system and can thus continue unabated. A variety of pressures resulting from population growth, changing diets, urbanisation, climate change and many other factors is causing biodiversity to decline, and ecosystems are continuously being degraded. The world’s poor are most at risk from the continuing loss of biodiversity, as they are the ones that are most reliant on the ecosystem services that are being degraded.
At the meeting of the environment ministers of the G8 countries and the five major newly industrialising countries that took place in Potsdam in March 2007, the German government proposed a study on 'The economic significance of the global loss of biological diversity' as part of the so-called 'Potsdam Initiative' for biodiversity.
The following wording was agreed at Potsdam: 'In a global study we will initiate the process of analysing the global economic benefit of biological diversity, the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation.'
This proposal was endorsed by G8+5 leaders at the Heiligendamm Summit on 6-8 June 2007.
With this in mind, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment and the European Commission, with the support of several other partners, have jointly initiated preparatory work for this global study, which is named 'The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB)'. Mr Pavan Sukhdev, a senior banker at Deutsche Bank, and a Founder-Director of the ‘Green Accounting for Indian States Project’, an initiative of the Green Indian States Trust (GIST), was appointed as the independent Study Leader. He is assisted in his task by an Advisory Board, which consists of prominent experts. The TEEB Office is hosted by UNEP. Several countries and organisations have joined TEEB.
The study is evaluating the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services worldwide, and comparing them with the costs of effective conservation and sustainable use. It is intended that it will sharpen awareness of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and facilitate the development of cost-effective policy responses and better informed decisions.
TEEB is being conducted in two phases. Preliminary findings from the first phase have been presented by Minister Gabriel, Commissioner Dimas and Mr Pavan Sukhdev at the High-Level Segment of the Ninth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-9) in Bonn, Germany, in May 2008, in the form of an interim report.
- THE ECONOMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERISTY - Interim Report 2008
     
The second, more substantial, phase of the study is structured around one background report and several reports targeted towards specific categories of decision makers who are also potential users of evaluation tools for biodiversity and ecosystem services:
- D0 Report on the Ecological and Economic Foundations
- D1 Report for Policy Makers
- D2 Report for Local Administrators
- D3 Report for Businesses
- D4 Report for Citizens.
These reports will be compiled in a phased approach and published consecutively between autumn 2009 and autumn 2010. The final results will be presented at CBD COP-10 in 2010.
On 2 September 2009, an Issue Paper was released in Berlin, presenting the results of the TEEB work done so far relevant in the context of the upcoming climate change negotiations. It underscored the importance of ecosystems for cost-effective climate change mitigation and adaptation, and highlighted large-scale impacts of climate change on some ecosystems and their services
At the same time, part of the D0 Report on the Ecological and Economic Foundations was made available on-line in the form of draft chapters for discussion. These chapters aim to provide the framework and the methodological background for the other TEEB reports. Work is still on-going on the D0 Report, in particular on the quantitative assessment.
 On 13 November 2009, the D1 Report for Policy Makers was released in Brussels. The main findings were presented by Mr Pavan Sukhdev, in presence of Commissioner Dimas and Parliamentary State Secretary Ursula Heinen. See the press release of UNEP and the EU press release.
The D1 Report for policymakers is the TEEB output most directly connected to the political agenda and aimed at better integrating biodiversity priorities into policy choices. It is intended that, based on the feedback received, D1 will be updated for the final presentation of the whole TEEB report at CBD COP10.
The full D1 report is available here.
The call for evidence for Phase II is still open. The information and material received will be reviewed and feed into the different reports.
Please go to the TEEB website for more information on the study and updates. |
