Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces Roadmap for Nature-Based Solutions to Fight Climate Change

By Alex Maleshko, PanXchange

Nature-based solutions include protection or conservation of the natural environment, which can slow climate change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide as well as improve the environment’s overall resiliency. Nature-based solutions play a critical role in the economy, national security, human health, equity, and in PanXchange’s view are arguably the most scalable solution in mankind’s fight against climate change.

On November 8, 2022 at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the Biden-Harris Administration released its Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, marking the first time the US has developed a strategy to utilize nature-based solutions to address climate change. Under the current administration,  $25 billion worth of current and pending projects are already aligned toward this goal, and are in support of the President’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030. 

The Roadmap submitted to the National Climate Task Force calls on expanding the use of nature-based solutions and outlines five strategic areas of focus for the federal government:

1. Update Policies to Accelerate Nature-Based Solutions
2. Unlock Funding for Nature-Based Solutions
3. Lead with Federal Facilities and Assets
4. Train the Nature-Based Solutions Workforce
5. Prioritize Research, Innovation, Knowledge, and Adaptive Learning

The roadmap and aligned actions build on major investments made through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. For instance, in the Inflation reduction act, $20 billion is directed to farmers, ranchers, and private forest owners working to increase carbon storage and reduce emissions. The Inflation Reduction Act also provides additional funding for USDA, NRCS and AECP programs which will prioritize conservation and restoration of carbon rich wetlands and conservation of grasslands that are at risk of losing carbon and habitat through conversion to more intensive agriculture.

While it’s certainly a good thing that governments are working to implement beneficial environmental policy, they are often “littered with vague terms that while trying to encompass everything, end up meaning nothing. It’s not just nature-based solutions but [ill-defined terms] like ‘regenerative,’ ‘climate smart,’ ‘nature positive,’ ‘resilient,’ and the OG buzzword ‘green.’”

While the government has provided a number of notable examples of nature-based solutions, as so many different activities qualify as nature-based solutions, it’s hard to know exactly how the $25 billion will be spent. Some nature-based solutions don’t work that well. Large tree planting campaigns, for example, are often promoted by countries and companies as nature-based solutions, yet in many cases they fail, or even harm local communities. Without consistency in terminology, this makes environmental policies vulnerable to exploitation, potentially misleading to the public, and even unnecessarily misleading or confusing for technical experts. To that end, PanXchange is adamant about clear-cut and consistent definitions for their carbon removal program, as their core protocols for carbon removal fall under the broad nature-based solutions category.