NEW YORK — Nine multilaterals development banks agreed today to significantly boost nature finance for member countries, supporting their strategies to enact sustainable policies, the Interamerican Development Bank announced in a statement.

Under the statement “Nature, People, and Planet” the nine institutions pledged to develop projects, business models and financing instruments “to support economic activity that seeks to reverse the drivers of nature loss and promote its protection and regeneration,” according to the document unveiled during the World Leaders Summit event on Forests and Land Use at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland.

The multilaterals will set out institutional strategic approaches to further mainstream nature into analysis, assessments, advice, investments, and operations by 2025, the said in the document.

The IDB along with the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the World Bank Group participated in the agreement. 

“Natural capital is critical in post-COVID-19 recovery for Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world,” said IDB’s president Mauricio Claver-Carone in the statement. “It creates jobs, generates income, leverages private-sector investment, and resiliently protects critical ecosystem services,” he added.

Latin America and the Caribbean have the most critical assets to nourish nature-based solutions, according to the IDB statement. Besides being home to seven of the 25 biodiversity hotspots, the region accounts for 40% of the world’s biodiversity, 30% of the freshwater, and almost 50% of the world’s tropical forests. “However, this natural asset is not being tapped, and nature-based projects in the region are not achieving their full potential, primarily due to a lack of technical knowledge, strategy, and funding. In some cases, policies still act as negative subsidies for biodiversity,” the statement said.

The United Nations estimates that global oceans and terrestrial ecosystems are each absorbing 25% of emissions, and nature-based solutions could account for 40% of the carbon emission reduction needed to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius by 2030.