NATURE-BASED
SOLUTIONS FOR
CLIMATE CHANGE
JULY 2020
BACKGROUND
The rate of climate change and its impacts are accelerating and we are
far from being on track from the maximum 1.5°C change that science
recommends
1
.
There are approximately one billion highly vulnerable
people facing high risks to their safety and welfare from the
adverse impacts of climate change. The people at greatest
risk are low-income communities dependent on local natural
resource systems. In parallel, we are losing ecosystems and
their contributions to human well-being at an unprecedented
rate. The current rate of nature loss is many times higher
than the naturally occurring ‘background’ extinction rate².
This alarming trend not only contributes to climate change
but also is magnied by its impacts. In short, the challenges
of land degradation, biodiversity loss and global warming are
fundamentally entwined, as are their solutions.
Recently, both public and private institutions and the
international community have begun to seriously consider
Nature-based Solutions for climate change as a key
component in addressing the climate emergency, alongside
the needed transformations in our energy, urban, and
industrial systems as pointed out by IPCC 1.5°C report.
In terms of their contribution to mitigation, the recent
IPCC report notes that agriculture, forestry, and other
land use (AFOLU) accounted for 24% of global greenhouse
gas emissions in 2010, which should also account for the
important oceans' contributions being estimated by science³.
Reducing these greenhouse gas emissions from AFOLU while
simultaneously using the land sector to remove CO₂ from the
atmosphere is critical to limiting warming to 1.5°C threshold.
Other accounts postulate that Nature-based Solutions for
climate mitigation could reach 30% of the world's mitigation
potential⁴.
If applied in an accelerated manner while delaying necessary
action in the energy system, up to 37% of 2°C (not 1.5°C )
compliant global climate mitigation⁵.
Meanwhile, using ecosystems can be a cost-eective and
more sustainable way to reduce people’s vulnerability to
climate change impacts while maintaining or restoring local,
regional and/or global ecosystem services⁶.
However, a variety of challenges exist for the potential of
Nature-based Solutions for climate change to be unleashed,
benchmarked and sustainably nanced. As WWF has
gathered signicant experience in developing Nature-based
Solutions in various regions and countries, we see 2020 as a
key moment to scale up advocacy on this issue in the climate
and biodiversity spaces.
1 IPCC. Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C . (2018)
2 WWF. Living Planet Report 2018. https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2018. IPBES. IPBES Global Assessment. (2019).
3 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf
4 Griscom, B. et al. We need both natural and energy solutions to stabilize our climate - Griscom - 2019 - Global Change Biology - Wiley Online Library. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.
wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14612. (Accessed: 14th September 2019)
5 Griscom, B. W. et al. Natural climate solutions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, 11645–11650 (2017).
6 For example, the recent report by the Global Commission on Adaptation notes that restoring mangroves that protect from seal level rise and storm surges is 2-5 times cheaper than building
engineered structures.
WWF INTERNATIONAL 2020 2
DEFINITION
For WWF, Nature-based Solutions for climate change are:
“Ecosystem conservation, management and/or restoration interventions intentionally planned to deliver
measurable positive climate adaptation and /or mitigation benets that have human development and
biodiversity co-benets managing anticipated climate risks to nature that can undermine their long-term
eectiveness.”
SUPPORTING ACTIONS
ECOSYSTEMS
CLIMATE-RELATED
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
MEASURABLE CLIMATE-RELATED
OUTCOMES
FORESTS
GRASSLANDS
MANGROVES
WETLANDS
MAINTAIN
FUNCTIONALITY:
Avoid
degradation
Protect
Restore
Manage
in a climate
change
context
Carbon storage
(Vegetation)
Carbon storage
(Soils)
Storm surge
attenuation
Flood water
retention
Tonnes of CO2 reduced,
avoided, or sequestered
Number of people with
reduced vulnerability to
climate hazards
co2
co2
co2
CO-BENEFITS FOR PEOPLE AND NATURE
Figure 1. An
illustration of
WWF's denition
of Nature-based
Solutions to
climate with some
examples
Source: WWF, 2019.
Note that it is an
illustration using
some examples. Key
ecosystems such as
seagrasses and coral
reefs are missing.
PRINCIPLES
WWF INTERNATIONAL 2020 3
To meet the denition stated earlier, WWF has identied 5 key principles for Nature-based Solutions
for climate change.
NBS for
Climate
Change
1
2
3
4
5
Result in increased climate ambition and ecosystem functionality. Nature-based Solutions
interventions contribute increased climate change adaptation and/or mitigation rather than compensating for
low ambition in other sectors, ensuring that needed energy, food, urban and infrastructure net zero
transformations support one another. Improving ecosystem functionality involves assessing how climate change
will affect nature and taking steps to better manage these risks.
Informed by science: uses
the best available climate,
biological and social sciences
to set achievable and
measurable targets.
Synergistic: Help reduce and/or
avoid emissions and/ or reduce
human vulnerability while conserving
nature and trade-offs among other
societal goals as well as avoiding
adverse impacts on biodiversity e.g.
through broad, single-species
restoration.
Co-designed and
co-implemented with
Indigenous Peoples and local
stakeholders as both a way to
understand their most
pressing challenges as well as
building co-responsibility.
Measureable and
traceable: Outcomes can be
quantified and attributed to
interventions through robust
monitoring, evaluation and
reporting frameworks.
SYNERGISTIC INTERVENTIONS & OUTCOMES
WWF supports a synergistic approach to Nature-based Solutions that
prioritises people while maximizing benets to nature in the global race
to curtail and adapt to climate change. Recent work by IPCC and IPBES
provide frameworks for understanding Nature-based Solutions that best
meet WWF’s synergistic vision.
8
Nature-based Solutions and Sustainable consumption and production
Sustainable Forest and
Grasslands Management
Better Urban Planning
Better Livestock
Management
Better Cropland
Management
Zero Deforestation
and Conversion
Agroforestry
Reduced Food
Loss and Waste
Nature-based Solutions can be used to tackle climate change by working with nature to prevent carbon emissions, draw
down carbon from the atmosphere, and/or improve resilience to climate risks. Sustainable consumption and production can
take pressure off land and so reduce drivers of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Wetlands
Restoration
Implement
Environmental Flows
Each of the above actions can positively contribute to most of the challenges below.
Increased Soil Carbon
Zero Grassland
Conversion
Agricultural
Diversification
FOOD SECURITY
CLIMATE MITIGATION
CLIMATE ADAPTATION
LAND DEGRADATION
BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
& DESERTIFICATION
Diet Shi
Forest and
Ecosystem Restoration
Based on the IPCC SR1.5, SRCCL and SROCC and the IPBES Global Assessment
Restore ‘Blue
Carbon’ Ecosystems
Manage Fisheries
Sustainably
These interventions, chosen as those that contribute to
multiple societal goals without signicant tradeos, are listed
and illustrated in Figure 2 below.
Nature-based Solutions can also substitute for, or
complement, more traditional engineered solutions.
Engineered solutions generally provide a single benet,
and often inuence other resources, and require continued
maintenance and eventual replacement. In contrast, Nature-
based Solutions provide the primary benet and a range of
co-benets
and often require less maintenance over time as they rely
on the regenerative processes of nature. For example,
levees and oodwalls provide a single benet, impact river-
oodplain ecosystems, and require considerable long-term
maintenance (much of the developed world now faces a
considerable challenge of backlogged maintenance of levees).
In contrast, Nature-based Solutions for ood management
can reduce ood risk while beneting water quality, nutrient
sequestration, biodiversity and open space and require less
maintenance over time.
Figure 2.
Synergistic Nature-
based Solutions
Source: Climate,
Nature & our 1.5°C
Future; A Synthesis
of IPCC and IPBES
Reports. WWF. 2019.
Solutions shown
have been found
by IPCC and IPBE
to contribute to a
number of the ve
societal challenges
listed at the bottom of
the gure.
8 There are a range of additional sources that provide typologies such as the World Bank, the European Environmental Agency, UNEP, and UN Water as well as the Nature Based Solutions
Initiative spearheaded by the University of Oxford that includes a tool.
WWF INTERNATIONAL 2020 4
BARRIERS & TRADE-OFFS
While Nature-based Solutions are physical conservation,
restoration and management interventions, they can be
facilitated by institutional, management or policy decisions
and arrangements that run from local to global scales.
The science is also clear that Nature-based Solutions face
many barriers to implementation, including technological,
institutional, socio-cultural, and geophysical. Many nature-
based solutions for climate mitigation depend on the
continued CO₂ sink function of Nature-based Solutions,
but carbon removal through Nature-based Solutions can be
impermanent and reversible with future climate change due
to re, pests, changes in management regimes, or ecosystem
collapse
9,10
. Furthermore, many Nature-based Solutions
- especially for mitigation - are land-intensive. Large-scale
Nature-based Solutions will need to be applied in tandem
with measures that reduce pressure on land like changes to
food, dietary, and agricultural systems; otherwise land use
conicts may arise. Given the historic propensity for marginal
communities to withstand the worst of land use changes and
climate change, the social costs of Nature-based Solutions
could be negative if not designed inclusively with aected
stakeholders. In addition to these, barriers preventing
greater adoption of Nature-based Solutions for adaptation
include the potential limitations of ecosystem services under
a changing climate; diculty in monitoring, evaluation, and
establishing the evidence base for eective interventions; and
varying social and cultural perceptions of climate risks and
what acceptable interventions might be.
WWF WORKS WITH A VARIETY OF PARTNERS TO:
• Elevate the role of Nature-based Solutions for climate adaptation and the need for increased public and blended nance to
reach the most vulnerable communities.
• Working with IUCN in developing and piloting the Nature-based Solutions Standards.
• Provide practical guidance for countries to include Nature-based Solutions n their Nationally Determined
Contributions (NDCs).
• Propose ways to align concepts, measures and safeguards between the United Nations Framework for
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Post-2020 Framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• Develop science-based guidance for synergistic interventions.
• Identify policy, governance and nancial solutions to sustainably fund and scale projects.
• Work with local communities and Indigenous Peoples groups to design and develop best in class projects
that benet climate, nature and people.
9 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181120073635.htm
10 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6444/932/tab-pdf
WWF INTERNATIONAL 2020 5
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© 2020
© 1986 Panda symbol WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature (Formerly World Wildlife Fund)
® “WWF” is a WWF Registered Trademark. WWF, Avenue du Mont-Bland,
1196 Gland, Switzerland. Tel. +41 22 364 9111. Fax. +41 22 364 0332.
For contact details and further information, please visit our international
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FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
VANESSA PEREZ-CIRERA
Global Deputy Lead Climate & Energy
WWF International
vperez@wwnt.org
SHAUN MARTIN
Vice President, Ecological & Social Resilience
WWF-US
Cover photo: Ethan Daniels / Shutterstock.com
Back cover photo: Jean François Timmers / WWF-Brazil
