THE ECONOMICS OF ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY – AN INTERIM REPORT

In March 2007, the G8+5 environment ministers met in Potsdam. Inspired by the momentum for early action and policy change created by the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change, they expressed the need to explore a similar project on the economics of the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity. The Minister for the Environment in Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, with the support of the European Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas, took the lead and accepted the challenge of organizing this study. This study was designed to “initiate the process of analyzing the global economic benefit of biological diversity, the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the failure to take protective measures versus the costs of effective conservation.”

Under the leadership of Deutsche Bank’s Pavan Sukhdev, several partners worked during the first phase of the study to demonstrate the huge significance of ecosystems and biodiversity and the threats to human welfare if no action is taken to reverse current damage and losses. The second phase of the study will expand on this and show how to use this knowledge to design the right tools and policies. Preliminary findings included in this interim report were presented to the High-Level Segment of the ninth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP9). Final results will be presented at CBD COP10 in 2010. Please click here to download the report