Biodiversity targets will not be met without debt and tax justice
Current structural conditions of the economy (such as overreliance on debt with highly unequal and unfair conditions) create the economic pressures that drive biodiversity loss, while undercutting public spending available for biodiversity goals.
Two types of reforms should be considered: tax reform and debt justice. Such approaches to biodiversity funding would more permanently counter the debt-austerity nexus that limits developing countries from reaching their biodiversity targets, while beginning to right the historic imbalance between those who have economically benefited the most from biodiversity decline and those who have not.
In light of the grossly insufficient international public finance currently committed to support developing countries to meet their biodiversity targets, such structural reforms should be on the table as part of fulfilling the common but differentiated responsibilities set out in Article 20 of the CBD. The current GBF negotiations should integrate these imperatives. By doing so, public resources will be greatly mobilized and harmful financial flows deflated, while dismantling the political and economic structures that inhibit implementation of biodiversity policy in the first place.
By Jessica Dempsey
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01619-5