Mapping the Benefits and Trade-offs from Natural Climate Solutions
A new study shows how protecting, better managing, and restoring nature for climate change enhance human wellbeing, biodiversity, and ecosystems.
Media Contacts
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Adrienne Egolf
The Nature Conservancy
Email: aegolf@tnc.org
New research shows natural climate solution pathways with the highest potential to mitigate carbon also have the most evidence of their impacts on people and nature, according to a study led by The Nature Conservancy and partners and published in Nature Sustainability.
This innovative research comes at a pivotal moment. With the UN-backed centralized carbon market (Article 6.4) approved at COP29, natural climate solutions are poised to play an even greater role in addressing climate challenges globally. This systematic review of the global evidence will help countries implement natural climate solutions by showing the impacts that pathways like reforestation and wetland protection can have on human wellbeing, biodiversity, and the environment, beyond climate change mitigation.
Using advanced machine learning methods and large language models, the researchers analyzed over 250,000 peer-reviewed publications to assess the benefits and trade-offs of natural climate solutions.
Quote: J.T. Erbaugh
Natural climate solutions hold the promise of transforming ecosystems and livelihoods, but their implementation must be informed by evidence.
“Natural climate solutions hold the promise of transforming ecosystems and livelihoods, but their implementation must be informed by evidence,” said J.T. Erbaugh, co-lead author, TNC Applied Social Scientist, and faculty at the Department of Environmental Science, Dartmouth College.
“Our evidence base can help balance risks and benefits for people and ecosystems more equitably and effectively," Brian Robinson, co-lead author and Associate Professor of Geography at McGill University said. “The scale of our evidence base transforms how we understand how to implement natural climate solutions.”
“We’ve achieved something technically and pragmatically unprecedented: the first comprehensive analysis of how natural climate solutions impact every dimension of human and environmental wellbeing,” said Charlotte Chang, lead co-author, One Conservancy Science Fellow at TNC, and Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. “By using open-source large language models, we could evaluate vast amounts of data in ways that were previously impossible.”
Importantly, this work shows we have ample evidence on human wellbeing, biodiversity, and ecosystem co-impacts for many natural climate solutions pathways with high climate change mitigation potential, such as avoided forest conversion, natural forest management, agroforestry, and some improved grazing strategies.
But it also highlights areas needing further work on areas such as wetlands protection and restoration. Though these pathways could contribute an estimated 6 percent to global climate change mitigation, there is limited evidence of the other benefits or tradeoffs to show how these actions would impact people and nature.
Co-Benefits of Natural Climate Solutions
Natural climate solutions are good for people and nature. Strategies to protect, better manage and restore ecosystems not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they can also promote biodiversity, provide clean air and water, and make communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity benefits can include: improved or sustained diversity in animal species via available habitat, food sources, or connectivity between patches of habitat that allow species to move across landscapes for food and water, to seek shelter, or to procreate. Plant species diversity, which is also supported by protection, natural restoration, agroforestry or other NCS pathways, ensures the overall health and resilience of ecosystems.
Human Wellbeing
Human wellbeing benefits can include: human health via improved air or water quality or heat regulation; improved economic and material living standards; security and stability; improved social relations; upholding of cultural and spiritual values and practices.
Environment
Ecosystem services can include: natural habitat improving the pollination of insect-pollinated crops; roots of trees and vegetation stabilizing soil, encouraging rainwater infiltration, decreasing erosion and improving the retention of nitrogen and other nutrients in the soil that can be harmful if released via run-off into waterways; tree coverage providing heat regulation and shade for people and wildlife; or coastal vegetation such as mangroves reducing flood risk and coastal hazards from storm surges.
Climate
Globally, natural climate solutions could deliver up to a third of the emission reductions needed by 2030 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
RETURN
The research team overcame significant technical challenges in mapping natural climate solutions co-impacts evidence by:
- Identifying relevant evidence across diverse fields, even when the concept of “natural climate solutions” was not explicitly used.
- Using large, unsupervised machine learning models to categorize abstracts and identify research on natural climate solutions and their co-impacts.
- Capturing the full distribution of co-impact evidence, recognizing local trade-offs in human wellbeing, biodiversity, and climate change mitigation outcomes.
The evidence map provides a global stock take on co-impacts from 22 natural climate solutions pathways, guiding strategic research priorities and accelerating natural climate solutions implementation for climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. It includes papers from 181 countries, all five biomes, 246 disciplines, and 364 thematic topics.
“COP29 and COP16 demonstrate the urgent role natural climate solutions play in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss,” said Yuta Masuda, co-lead author and Director of Science at the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. “This extensive dataset overcomes significant technical barriers and provides much needed insight into evidence gaps and high-priority areas for further research and investment.”
The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. Guided by science, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that nature and people can thrive together. We are tackling climate change, conserving lands, waters and oceans at an unprecedented scale, providing food and water sustainably and helping make cities more sustainable. The Nature Conservancy is working to make a lasting difference around the world in 81 countries and territories (40 by direct conservation impact and 41 through partners) through a collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments, the private sector, and other partners. To learn more, visit nature.org or follow @nature_press on X.