European Investment Bank and WWF Partner to Drive Nature-Based Climate Resilience Across Europe
(IN BRIEF) The European Investment Bank (EIB) and WWF have forged a four-year partnership to promote Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in Europe, aiming to enhance climate resilience and biodiversity restoration. Formalized at COP16 in Colombia, this collaboration will focus on ecosystem restoration in agriculture, energy, and urban areas, building Europe’s capacity to withstand escalating climate impacts. WWF will establish an ‘Incubation Facility’ to develop NbS projects, while the EIB will support funding mobilization. This partnership aligns with EU climate goals, including the recent Nature Restoration Law, and underscores the need for immediate investment in nature-driven solutions to address floods, droughts, and biodiversity loss across the continent.
(PRESS RELEASE) LUXEMBOURG, 30-Oct-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — The European Investment Bank (EIB) has entered a collaborative agreement with WWF to advance Nature-based Solutions (NbS) across Europe, aiming to boost climate adaptation and counter biodiversity loss. EIB outlines the four-year partnership, formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference COP16 in Colombia. Through this accord, the EIB and WWF commit to promoting ecosystem-restoration initiatives across sectors like agriculture, energy, and urban resilience to build climate resilience in Europe, which has been disproportionately affected by climate change.
Central to the partnership, WWF will launch an ‘Incubation Facility’ to develop NbS projects from inception to investment readiness, while the EIB will leverage its expertise to attract public and private funding to drive these initiatives. This collaborative approach targets reversing Europe’s nature loss and restoring biodiversity, a critical task given that European species populations have declined by an average of 35% since 1970, according to the latest WWF Living Planet Report.
EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle underscored the urgency of strengthening Europe’s climate resilience, emphasizing the need for scaled NbS projects in the wake of increasingly severe droughts and floods. Fayolle noted that partnering with organizations like WWF, which has deep-rooted community engagement, can lead to tangible, large-scale impact. WWF’s Director General Kirsten Schuijt highlighted that Europe’s escalating climate impacts demand rapid and expansive investment in solutions that harness nature’s protective capacities against extreme weather events.
This partnership aligns with recent EU actions, including the adoption of the EU Nature Restoration Law and the European Commission’s Climate Adaptation Plan, which emphasize ecosystem health and resilience as foundational for long-term climate preparedness. The collaboration also builds on prior efforts between the EIB and WWF, including work on the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles and NbS for flood resilience in Greece.
This initiative represents a strategic move towards climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation, focusing on the implementation of nature-driven solutions that can shield European communities and ecosystems from the intensifying impacts of climate change.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It is active in more than 160 countries and makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.
As the Climate Bank, the EIB recognises that climate change and nature loss are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing environmental crises. The EIB Climate Adaptation Plan builds on the EU Adaptation Strategy, setting out how the EU can adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. The EIB Environment Framework outlines the EIB’s delivery of environmental sustainability impacts at scale. Mainstreaming nature-positive investments, increasing the co-benefits for nature, protecting biodiversity and managing the risks from biodiversity and nature loss are key elements of the Framework.
WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with over 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption
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Publish date : 2024-10-30 02:14:00
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