"When governments and nonprofits speak about climate action, they usually punctuate their presentations with a familiar collage of rapid transit systems, solar panels, wind turbines, and heat pumps."
That's the takeaway from a new report from the Action on Climate Team at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Nature-based solutions, such as planting trees in urban areas and restoring wetlands, "have been around for a long time and are now getting the attention they deserve," the researchers write.
"Public and private sector leaders are increasingly recognizing their value, but siloed approaches and fragmented knowledge tend to emphasize ad-hoc individual projects rather than wider systems-based approaches."
The World Conservation Congress defines nature-based solutions as " actions that protect, manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems; that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively; and that simultaneously provide human well-being and biodiversity benefits."
Nature-based solutions could provide 37% of the emissions reductions needed until 2030 to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement, per the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
"They also mitigate emissions by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing oxygen back into it, along with a multitude of other benefits," the researchers write.
In Canada, the federal government has committed $4 billion to Read the Entire Article
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Vertical farms are designed in a way to avoid the pressing issues about growing food crops in drought-and-disease-prone fields miles away from the population centers in which they will be consumed.