GFC Joins over 200 CSOs Calling Out Biodiversity Markets as False Solutions

GFC has joined more than 200 organisations signing on to a civil society statement opposing biodiversity offsets and credits, arguing that biodiversity markets are being modeled on carbon markets, which GFC has consistently called out as dangerous and rights-abusing false solutions to the climate crisis.

Stop the promotion, development and use of biodiversity offsetting and crediting schemes. Instead, prioritize transformational change in tackling the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.

Instead, the statement calls for transformational change in tackling the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, arguing that “just as carbon offsetting delays climate ambition, biodiversity offsetting will only delay urgent action on addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss.”

Biodiversity credits and offset schemes are false solutions to a false problem – there are much better ways to increase biodiversity financing, without recourse to these risky schemes. Biodiversity offsetting, like carbon offsetting, enables rich countries, corporate actors, financial institutions, and other actors to profit from the biodiversity crisis they have created and maintain the status quo, avoiding implementing politically difficult decisions to regulate destructive activities domestically while creating a new asset class for their financial sectors.

Read the full statement here: https://www.biodmarketwatch.info/

The statement is available in French, Spanish, and English

24 Jul, 2024
Posted in Petitions and statements, Forests and Climate Change