Nature loss, water stress, and climate impacts are increasingly affecting people’s health, safety, livelihoods, and economic prospects across the world. Living in peace with nature is therefore not only an environmental imperative, but also a condition for long-term prosperity, resilience, and social stability. Healthy ecosystems underpin water security, climate adaptation and mitigation, food systems, livelihoods, competitiveness, and public health worldwide. Among others, wetlands, rivers, forests, soils, coastal ecosystems and urban green spaces help retain water, reduce flood and drought risks, support biodiversity, and sustain the natural assets on which economies depend. Delivering these benefits at scale requires stronger cooperation between public authorities, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities, youth, the private sector and national and international institutions, while also recognising that cities and regions as well as civil society organisations are key actors in supporting and shaping investment, infrastructure and implementation on the ground.

Restoring ecosystems, achieving water resilience, protecting biodiversity, and managing land sustainably require long-term effort and funding. However, public funding available to conserve and restore nature remains far below what is needed to maintain healthy ecosystems that provide clean water, healthy soil, pollination, and other essential services. The financing gap for biodiversity conservation is USD 700 billion per year, while Target 19 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) commits to mobilising USD 200 billion per year for biodiversity from all sources, including USD 30 billion through international finance. Closing this gap requires sufficient and stable public funding, the phasing-out of environmentally harmful subsidies, and the strategic mobilization of private finance – complementing but not replacing public funds. It also requires ensuring that financial resources are effectively channelled towards the actors responsible for delivering these outcomes on the ground Target 19 mentions a broad range of instruments, such as blended finance, payments for ecosystem services, nature credits, as well as collective actions and non-market-based approaches.

In this context, the side event will explore how nature is the basis of economic prosperity and improvement of citizens' quality of life, with a particular focus on how to translate global biodiversity ambition into tangible local outcomes. It includes looking into how closing the biodiversity financing gap requires matching ambition with investment, direct access to funding for actors on the ground, and how public and private finance can better support sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry, ecosystem protection and restoration, and nature-based solutions. The discussions will highlight the role of local and regional authorities, together with civil society organisations (including youth and social partners), in translating global biodiversity targets into practical action on the ground, ensuring that investment reaches those managing and restoring natural capital. Through concrete examples, the event will showcase how local experience can inform the implementation of the GBF to strengthen water resilience, restore biodiversity, create sustainable economic opportunities, and improve citizens' quality of life.

Draft programme

Moderator: Axel Ericksson, Youth delegate to COP of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)