Frank Elderson: Taking action for nature – investing in economic resilience and prosperity

Keynote speech by Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, at COP17 Finance and Biodiversity Day

It is a pleasure to open the Finance and Biodiversity Day at COP17.

The theme of this COP is “Taking Action for Nature’’.

We have talked about the need for action for long enough. Now we need to act.

Four years ago, the international community adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, setting out a pathway to living in harmony with nature by 2050.

The destination is set. The path is clear. But progress has remained limited. And nature has not stood still. It has continued to deteriorate. So we need to accelerate.

Tangible progress requires a shift from targets to implementation, from awareness to engagement, from ambition to investment.

COP17 must help us accelerate the journey. And finance has a central role to play. That should not come as a surprise: without investment, there can be no transition.

But we need to get the economics right. Protecting and restoring nature is not simply spending. It is investment: investment in the natural capital on which our economies depend, investment in resilience, and investment in our future prosperity.

That is why Finance and Biodiversity Day matters.

When ecosystems falter, the economy is at risk

Let me start with a fundamental question: why is nature so important to the economy?

We tend to think of roads, bridges and electricity grids as critical assets that serve as the foundation of a modern economy.

But there is another kind of infrastructure that we often take for granted: natural capital.

Nature provides services without which large parts of our economies could not function. Water keeps our factories and farms running, healthy soils sustain our food systems, forests and wetlands regulate droughts and floods, oceans absorb heat and carbon.