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By Manuel Pulgar-Vidal
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In August, a massive avalanche of rock and glacial ice tore down a mountainside in the Himalayas, unleashing a torrent of water, rock and sediment that thundered toward communities along Nepal's Trishuli River at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. Entire villages were swept away. Two months later, the death toll stands at more than 1,500, with another 5,600 people still missing.
Nepal’s tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers posed by our quickly warming world, and of the need to invest in protections before disaster strikes. When world leaders gather in Turkey for the United Nations climate summit COP31 from November 9, protecting people from increasingly dangerous climate hazards must be at the center of their agenda.
At last year's summit, countries agreed to triple the amount of financing to help communities prepare for and withstand climate impacts by 2035. Coming up with the money is just one part of the challenge. Making sure it is spent on the right solutions for the right threats is another. And in many places, those solutions include one of our most powerful and underused defenses: nature itself.
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We often think of nature as a victim of climate change: forests consumed by wildfires, coral reefs bleached by warming seas, polar ice melting as the Arctic heats up. Yet healthy ecosystems can also help protect us from the impacts of a destabilized climate, including mangrove forests that shield coastal communities from storm surges, wetlands that absorb floodwaters and forests that stabilize hillsides and regulate water supplies.
The benefits to communities and people are significant. A 2019 study estimated that Florida's mangroves prevented $1.5 billion in flood damage and helped protect more than half a million people during Hurricane Irma two years earlier. A more recent study estimated these coastal forests prevented another $4.1 billion in property damage during Hurricane Ian in 2022.
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In Colombia, a study found that conserving and restoring forests along roads could be 16 times more cost-effective than paying for damage caused by landslides. A study of nature-based disaster risk reduction projects in Haiti, India, Indonesia and Uganda likewise found that their estimated economic benefits exceeded implementation costs within five to 10 years.
Healthy ecosystems provide multiple benefits simultaneously, from protecting wildlife and livelihoods to improving water security. And while they cannot replace every sea wall or drainage system, combining natural and built infrastructure can often provide stronger protection.
All of which begs the question: Why aren't we investing in nature on a much larger scale?
According to a new report from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the U.N. Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), the greatest obstacles to expanding nature-based adaptation are often institutional, financial and political.
It makes sense if you consider how governments operate. Flood protection might fall under one ministry, forests under another and infrastructure under a third. Each has its own budgets and priorities. Approaches that depend on healthy ecosystems can fall through the cracks because no single agency takes responsibility.
Funding presents another obstacle. Many nature-based adaptation projects rely on grants lasting just two or three years. Yet restoring a forest or wetland—and realizing its full protective benefits—can take much longer. Once funding ends, maintenance and monitoring may end with it.
Even when financing is available, conventional investment assessments frequently underestimate nature's value. A floodwall has familiar construction costs and measurable outputs. The benefits of a restored wetland—including avoided flood damage, cleaner water and healthier fisheries—accrue across communities, industries and years. Such benefits rarely receive full credit when investment decisions are made.
The result is a system that routinely overlooks one of its most valuable assets.
What COP31 Must Deliver
Tripling adaptation finance by 2035 would be a laudable achievement. But greater investment alone cannot overcome these barriers. Governments must also change how they plan, finance and implement adaptation.
First, they should make nature-based solutions a standard part of development, infrastructure and disaster preparedness strategies, with clear responsibilities across ministries and policies that survive changes in political leadership.
Second, governments and financial institutions must account for the full economic value of healthy ecosystems. Investment decisions should consider future losses avoided and the multiple benefits nature provides. Longer-term funding, more accessible finance and partnerships that attract private investment can help turn promising projects into lasting protection.
Third, Indigenous peoples and local communities must have a meaningful role in designing and directing these efforts. Their knowledge of local landscapes, vulnerabilities and priorities is essential to ensuring solutions work.
Finally, countries must share evidence and expertise so successful approaches can spread, while adapting them to local needs and conditions.
To be clear, if we want to avoid worse climate change impacts in the years to come, we must redouble our efforts to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. But we must also acknowledge and prepare for the impacts that are already baked into life on Earth. Somewhere in the world, warming temperatures are destabilizing another mountain slope, another powerful storm is gathering strength over the ocean, another drought-stricken forest sits like a box of tinder waiting for a spark.
Governments can start acting now to help ensure that communities confronting future disasters are better protected. Nature is already doing its part. It's time we did ours.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is WWF’s global climate and energy lead and former president of COP20.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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