Abstract

Top global experts discuss why it’s time to move beyond GDP and value nature for its worth.

Around the world, economic statistics tell a story of 100 years of progress. But they conceal a parallel story of mounting environmental pressures – climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss – that undermine it. By omitting one of humanity’s greatest assets – nature – these statistics ultimately slow progress towards a sustainable, resilient future.

As economies begin their recovery from the COVID -19 pandemic, we need to build back better by moving beyond GDP towards a system that recognizes all of society’s assets – natural, human, social, and institutional, harnesses their interdependencies, and delivers the 2030 Agenda.

This webinar, co-hosted by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, brings together world-leading experts to discuss how natural capital accounting can help in the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution (responsible for over seven million deaths a year).

Panelists will discuss the economic rationale for placing nature at the heart of the recovery from COVID -19, highlighting a global UN-led effort to develop new statistics that reveal, rather than conceal, the impacts and dependencies of economies on nature. The resulting System of Environmental Economic Accounts – Ecosystem Accounting is expected to be adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2021, providing high-quality, rigorous data on biodiversity, ecosystems and the environment-economy nexus.

Book your place: bit.ly/MakeNatureCount

Confirmed speakers include:

• Norbert Barthle, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany

• Dr. Monica Contestabile, Editor in Chief, Nature Sustainability, as moderator of the event.

• Professor Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy and Co-Director, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge

• Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Cambridge

• Elliott Harris, United Nations Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

• Bert Kroese, Deputy Director General, Statistics Netherlands and Chair of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting

Attendees will gain a ‘first look’ into a series of landmark reports being launched for the webinar, and in the weeks to follow. These include:

• How Natural Capital Accounting Contributes to Integrated Policies for Sustainability and associated reports (United Nations, 2020)

• Building Forward: Investments in a Resilient Recovery (Agarwala, et al 2020)

• The Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity (HM Treasury, 2020)

Book your place: bit.ly/MakeNatureCount