F1ES 4520 - Finance and Biodiversity.

COP15 recent Kunming-Montreal agreement sets a direction of travel for the global economy to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. How this target can be reconciled with the impacts and dependencies of the global economy to Nature:
- 40% of the global economy directly depends on biodiversity (agri food, pharmaceuticals, textiles, energy, tourism, etc.) with business models that rely on continued natural resource availability are especially susceptible to biodiversity risk.
- 90% of impacts on biodiversity loss come from the 6 sectors: consumer staples; basic materials; energy; industrials; consumer discretionary and utilities
In order to align the global economy with the Paris climate agreement, financing needs are estimated at 1.6 - 3.8 trillion dollars per year. Today they are only $ 600 million. For biodiversity the needs are estimated at $700 billion per year, and they only amount to 120 - 140 billion dollars, or about 15% of the needs.
The purpose of this course is to understand
- the role and limits of finance to tackle, protect and restore natural capital and biodiversity,
- the state of the art and challenges to reallocate capital toward a so called Nature Positive economy
- the risks and opportunities that the Financial sector need to embed to reallocate capital in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity's upcoming agreement
We will cover how nature is priced, valued and financed; what are the risks induced by nature loss; what is meant by financing nature positive activities; and what are the drivers to do so: collective actions, voluntary coalitions, regulation, international engagements

Marine DE BAZELAIRE DE RUPIERRE

Séminaire

English

Workload : approximately 2 hours of personal work each week.

Good understanding of sustainable development principles.

Spring 2022-2023

Assessment:

Students will work in pair to explore a controversial issue and present it during a session to the classroom (40%).
A final policy paper (50%) will be expected from a list of questions to be shared at the beginning of the course
Students are expected to attend and participate actively to the course and debates (10%)

PEDAGOGICAL FORMAT
Each lecture will cover a theme, which will guide the discussion.
External experts will be invited to give keynote speeches
Preliminary reading will be provided before each lecture to ensure a sufficient background.