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UN Report Calls for Doubling Finance for Nature-based Solutions by 2025 | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD

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UN Report Calls for Doubling Finance for Nature-based Solutions by 2025 | News | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD

A report by the UN Setting Programme (UNEP) and the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative – an initiative aiming to combine the true worth of land into decision-making processes and promote sustainable land use – finds that nature-based options (NbS) are “considerably under-financed.” The evaluation means that to halt biodiversity loss, restrict local weather change to under 1.5°C, and obtain land degradation neutrality (LDN) by 2030, present finance flows to NbS should double by 2025 and triple by 2030.

The second in a sequence that goals to tell private and non-private actors about progress in opposition to international targets and the extent to which finance flows are aligned with them, the State of Finance for Nature 2022 report quantifies private and non-private finance flows to NbS to deal with biodiversity loss, local weather change, and land degradation.

The report signifies that present finance flows to NbS are at USD 154 billion per 12 months. That is lower than half of the USD 384 billion per 12 months wanted by 2025 – and a 3rd of the USD 484 billion per 12 months wanted by 2030. It additionally exhibits that at this time, funding in marine NbS makes up solely 9% of whole funding in NbS, and nature-negative expenditures “far outweigh” investments in NbS.

Investments in nature are investments in securing the longer term for generations to observe.

— Inger Anderson, UNEP Government Director

With enough finance, nonetheless, NbS can “present the means to cost-effectively attain local weather, biodiversity and land degradation neutrality targets.” The report exhibits {that a} fast doubling of finance flows to NbS can halt biodiversity loss, cut back emissions by 5 GtCO2 per 12 months by 2025 and by 15 GtCO2 per 12 months by 2050 to attain the 1.5°C state of affairs, and assist restore almost 1 billion hectares of degraded land. It factors out that personal sector funding in NbS should enhance within the coming years “by a number of orders of magnitude” from the present USD 26 billion per 12 months, which represents 17% of whole NbS funding, with the remainder supplied by governments.

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To allow these will increase, the report requires fast alignment of insurance policies, rules, financial exercise, and monetary flows with biodiversity values and with the Paris Settlement on local weather change. It recommends:

  • Financing inexperienced, together with by rising direct finance flows to NbS by way of public home spending, nature-focused Official Improvement Help (ODA), and guaranteeing that multilateral improvement banks (MDBs) and others prioritize inexperienced finance;
  • Greening finance, with firms and monetary establishments transitioning to “internet zero, internet optimistic” and equitable enterprise fashions within the quick time period; and
  • Growing inclusion by guaranteeing that private and non-private sector efforts to extend NbS investments combine simply transition rules and defend human rights.

“As we transition to net-zero emissions by 2050, we should additionally reorient all human exercise to ease the strain on the pure world on which all of us rely” stated UNEP Government Director Inger Anderson on the report’s launch on 1 December.

Produced with help from Vivid Economics by McKinsey, the report comes every week earlier than the graduation of the 2022 UN Biodiversity Convention, which is anticipated to undertake the post-2020 international biodiversity framework. [Publication: State of Finance for Nature 2022] [Executive Summary] [Publication Landing Page] [UNEP Press Release]

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US SEC obtained record financial remedies in fiscal 2024, agency says

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US SEC obtained record financial remedies in fiscal 2024, agency says

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission obtained $8.2 billion in financial remedies, the highest amount in its history, in fiscal 2024, the agency said in a statement on Friday.

The SEC filed 583 enforcement actions in the year that ended in September, down 26% from a year earlier, it said in a statement.

The $8.2 billion in financial remedies included $6.1 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, a record, and $2.1 billion in civil penalties, the second-highest amount on record, according to the SEC’s statement.

Much of the total financial remedies came from a single action: a $4.5 billion settlement with the now-bankrupt crypto firm Terraform Labs, following a unanimous jury verdict against the firm and its founder Do Kwon. The SEC is expected to collect little of that settlement amount because it agreed to be paid only after Terraform satisfies crypto loss claims as part of its bankruptcy wind-down.

The SEC also obtained orders barring 124 individuals from serving as officers and directors of public companies, the second-highest number of such prohibitions in a decade. Holding individuals accountable for misconduct has been a priority of the agency under Chair Gary Gensler, who is stepping down in January.

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“The Division of Enforcement is a steadfast cop on the beat, following the facts and the law wherever they lead to hold wrongdoers accountable,” Gensler said in a statement about the agency’s 2024 enforcement results.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

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Cop29: $250bn climate finance offer from rich world an insult, critics say

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Cop29: 0bn climate finance offer from rich world an insult, critics say

Developing countries have reacted angrily to an offer of $250bn in finance from the rich world – considerably less than they are demanding – to help them tackle the climate crisis.

The offer was contained in the draft text of an agreement published on Friday afternoon at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where talks are likely to carry on past a 6pm deadline.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s climate envoy, told the Guardian: “This is definitely not enough. What we need is at least $5tn a year, but what we have asked for is just $1.3tn. That is 1% of global GDP. That should not be too much when you’re talking about saving the planet we all live on.”

He said $250bn divided among all the developing countries in need amounted to very little. “It comes to nothing when you split it. We have bills in the billions to pay after droughts and flooding. What the heck will $250bn do? It won’t put us on a path to 1.5C. More like 3C.”

According to the new text of a deal, developing countries would receive a total of at least $1.3tn a year in climate finance by 2035, which is in line with the demands most submitted before this two-week conference. That would be made up of the $250bn from developed countries, plus other sources of finance including private investment.

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Poor nations wanted much more of the headline finance to come directly from rich countries, preferably in the form of grants rather than loans.

Civil society groups criticised the offer, variously describing it as “a joke”, “an embarrassment”, “an insult”, and the global north “playing poker with people’s lives”.

Mohamed Adow, a co-founder of Power Shift Africa, a thinktank, said: “Our expectations were low, but this is a slap in the face. No developing country will fall for this. It’s not clear what kind of trick the presidency is trying to pull. They’ve already disappointed everyone, but they have now angered and offended the developing world.”

The $250bn figure is significantly lower than the $300bn-a-year offer that some developed countries were mulling at the talks, to the Guardian’s knowledge.

The offer from developed countries, funded from their national budgets and overseas aid, is supposed to form the inner core of a “layered” finance settlement, accompanied by a middle layer of new forms of finance such as new taxes on fossil fuels and high-carbon activities, carbon trading and “innovative” forms of finance; and an outermost layer of investment from the private sector, into projects such as solar and windfarms.

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These layers would add up to $1.3tn a year, which is the amount that economists have calculated is needed in external finance for developing countries to tackle the climate crisis. Many activists have demanded more: figures of $5tn or $7tn a year have been put forward by some groups, based on the historical responsibilities of developed countries for causing the climate crisis.

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This latest text is the second from an increasingly embattled Cop presidency. Azerbaijan was widely criticised for its first draft on Thursday.

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There will now be further negotiations among countries and possibly a new or several new iterations of this draft text.

Avinash Persaud, a former adviser to the Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, and now an adviser to the president of the Inter-American Bank, said: “There is no deal to come out of Baku that will not leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, but we are within sight of a landing zone for the first time all year.”

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US Treasury Selects BNY as Financial Agent for Direct Express Program | PYMNTS.com

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US Treasury Selects BNY as Financial Agent for Direct Express Program | PYMNTS.com

The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) will serve as the financial agent for the Direct Express program, which provides 3.4 million Americans with a prepaid debit card to receive monthly federal benefits.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service said in a Thursday (Nov. 21) press release that it selected BNY for this role after evaluating proposals from multiple financial institutions and seeing the bank’s offering of features and customer service options.

The new agreement will begin Jan. 3 and will last five years, according to the release.

“Since 2008, the Direct Express program has paid federal beneficiaries seamlessly, inclusively and securely, while sparing taxpayers and customers the costs and risk associated with cashing paper checks,Fiscal Service Commissioner Tim Gribben said in the release.This new agreement will further our goals of delivering a modern customer experience and strengthening Treasury’s commitment to paying the right person, in the right amount, at the right time.”

With this agreement, BNY will add to the cardholder experience features like online/digital funds access, bill pay, cardless ATM access, omnichannel chat and text customer service, online dispute filing and in-person authentication options, the bank said in a Thursday press release.

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“Drawing on our leading platform capabilities, we look forward to advancing the program’s goal of providing high-quality financial services to individuals and communities throughout the U.S.,Jennifer Barker, global head of treasury services and depositary receipts at BNY, said in the release.

Seventy-seven percent of the recipients of disbursements opt for instant payments when given the option, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence and Ingo Payments collaboration,Measuring Consumers’ Growing Interest in Instant Payouts.”

That’s because consumers looking for disbursements — paychecks, government payments, insurance settlements, investment earnings — want their money quickly, the report found.

In October, the Treasury Department credited the Office of Payment Integrity, within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, with enhancing its fraud prevention capabilities and expanding offerings to new and existing customers.

The department said itstechnology and data-driven” approach allowed it to prevent and recover more than $4 billion in fraud and improper payments, up from $652 million in 2023.

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