Pollution

Can an economic valuation of nature actually internalise environmental costs?

You want to know more about the key terms mentioned in this dossier? Hereby we are delivering the explanations for the terminology of the "New Economy of Nature".

The United Nations play a key role in establishing the idea of nature as natural capital. However the practical implementation lags behind the noble goals stated in their documents and decisions.

Our oceans are becoming more and more acidic. Though barely detectable to humans, for many of the animals that live there, the change is already proving fatal.

All graphs of the Agrifood Atlas are published under a Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0. and can be continued to be used, processed and published under the mentioned conditions. You can find all downloads available in various formats (png, pdf) here.

The call for an economic valuation of nature, and in particular for limits ​​on pollution and the destruction of nature, is linked to the demand for a more flexible implementation of environmental laws and regulations. The idea of “compensation instead of reduction” is intended to guarantee this flexibility.

Trade with compensation credits is a prime example of how abstractions influence environmental policy. The astonishing reduction of unique habitats to a few measurable indicators is a prerequisite for trading biodiversity offsets.

An ecological crisis that is becoming increasingly hard to ignore is confronting policymakers with a dilemma: they are being called upon to protect the conditions for life on Earth without overly hampering industrial production and economic growth.