The UN recently released its First Draft of The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes multiple targets for urgent action to increase biodiversity over the coming decade, such as:

  • Ensure that all land and sea areas have integrated biodiversity plans in place.

  • Ensure that at least 20% of degraded ecosystems are under restoration, focusing on priority ecosystems.

  • Ensure that at least 30% of the earth’s land and sea areas are conserved, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and its contributions to people.

  • Reduce pollution from all sources to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity, ecosystem functions and human health.

  • Minimize the impact of climate change on biodiversity and ensure that all mitigation and adaptation efforts avoid negative impacts on biodiversity.

The Biodiversity Framework should be finalized later this year. For more info on the Draft version, go here or check out my post, The UN's New Strategic Plan to Increase Biodiversity and Save Endangered Species: Highlights. This post will be about the money side of the Framework, specifically how much the US should be willing to spend to do its part.

The authors of the Framework indicate that reducing harmful incentives and subsidies by $500 billion per year would do much to advance their biodiversity agenda. The cost of reducing these incentives and subsidies would be borne mostly by farmers and businesses. The Framework also calls for a direct infusion of cash “from all sources” to help reach its biodiversity targets, specifically an increase in financial resources of at least $200 billion per year.  

Since the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around 15% of global GDP, I’m thinking the US should contribute around 15% of the annual $200 billion required to implement the Framework, or about $30 billion a year. For some context, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently spends almost $17 billion on conservation programs, such as the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention.  In  The Bold Centrist: How to Help the USDA Do More to Protect the Environment, Increase Biodiversity, and Combat Climate Change , I proposed increasing the USDA budget for these programs by close to $13 billion, which in itself would get us almost halfway to the $30 billion goal.

Another candidate for increased spending would be the US Fish and Wildlife Service (NWS), currently with an annual budget of less than $2 billion. Most NWF funds go to protecting wild habitat and at-risk species, in the US and, to a lesser extent, other countries. The NWF is woefully underfunded. Its budget should at least be tripled. And then there’s the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with combined budgets of under $20 billion. These agencies do much that support healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. Increase their budgets by 10% and they’d be able to do a lot more.   

And let’s not forget state governments, which spend around $22 billion a year on environmental programs. Increase that by 10% and we’ve got another $2 billion for biodiversity. It’s all adds up: $13B + 4B + $2B + $2B = $21 Billion in increased spending from the USDA, NWF, NOAA, EPA, and state governments.  And then there are US environmental groups, which currently spend around $20 billion a year.  If additional donations and wise investments allowed them to increase that to $25 billion a year, well…we’d almost hit the $30 billion mark.

Point is: it’s doable.     

References:

First Draft of The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Convention on Biological Diversity, July 5, 2021 https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/abb5/591f/2e46096d3f0330b08ce87a45/wg2020-03-03-en.pdf  

Fiscal Year 2022: Interior Budget in Brief. May 2021. https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/2022-highlights-book.pdf

FY22 Budget Request: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. June 18, 2021 https://www.aip.org/fyi/2021/fy22-budget-request-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration

FY 2021 Enacted Budget and 2022 Proposed Budget https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/cj

Environmental spending in the 50 states. Balletpedia Accessed July 16, 2021. https://ballotpedia.org/Environmental_spending_in_the_50_states  

The Nonprofit Sector in Brief 2018: Public Charites, Giving, and Volunteering by Brice S. McKeever/Urban Institute November 2018 https://nccs.urban.org/publication/nonprofit-sector-brief-2018#growth 

US Dept Agriculture (USDA). USDA FY 2021 Budget Summary https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-fy2021-budget-summary.pdf