Why nature and climate need the same funding lever

Siloing climate and nature work is a strategic failure. Fauna & Flora's Annamaria Lehoczky argues that nature-based solutions belong at the centre of climate action, not as an afterthought or side stream – and that the fragmentation between global climate frameworks (UNFCCC) and biodiversity commitments (CBD) is leaving money on the table and weakening resilience.

The premise is straightforward: forests, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems regulate carbon cycles and buffer climate shocks. Treating them separately means climate strategies miss the co-benefits of protecting biodiversity, and conservation work lacks the investment mechanisms of climate finance. COP31 in Türkiye offers a moment to reset this.

Lehoczky's core claim: greater alignment between climate and biodiversity pledges unlocks capital flows that neither framework manages alone. Green finance institutions are beginning to recognise this – but the plumbing remains fractured. Organisations reporting under TCFD don't always cross-reference nature risk; NDCs (nationally determined contributions) and NBSAPs (national biodiversity strategies) sit in separate policy files.

This matters because nature-based solutions – mangrove restoration, rewilding, regenerative agriculture – deliver emissions reduction and biodiversity gain simultaneously. Yet they're chronically underfunded relative to renewable energy or carbon capture, partly because no single global body owns them, and partly because the case for investment is harder to quantify when split across two governance streams.

The question isn't whether COP31 will unify these agendas. It's whether the financial sector will move faster than diplomacy and start pricing nature risk properly.

Why treating nature loss and climate change as separate issues makes no sense

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