Recent findings highlight that NbS, next to opportunities for CO₂ removal, contribute considerably to climate adaptation and risk mitigation. Positive effects include flood control, increased resilience to droughts, biodiversity conservation, socio-economic development and improvements to human health and wellbeing. See Insight 10 for more on the benefits of NbS.

One expectation for NbS – offsetting residual emissions – has been set into context within the scientific debate. Scenarios that limit warming to 1.5°C are based on significant assumptions: full decarbonization within 30-40 years, shifting agriculture from carbon source to sink, considerable CO₂ removal and maintained resilience of natural ecosystems. Well-designed NbS play a pivotal role – not as a means to delay the phaseout of fossil fuels, but as a much needed supplement that can contribute to a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Importantly, further warming risks altering Earth System feedbacks and destabilizing ecosystems, which may undermine the long-term mitigation contribution of NbS and their benefits to people and the planet. Evidently, this makes rapid decarbonization ever more urgent, and highlights the need to strengthen the resilience of ecosystems through protection and restoration (see Insight 9).

At COP26, parties have an opportunity to address questions of equity and procedural justice that are central to the success of NbS. While cumulative emissions predominantly come from more industrialized countries, much of the carbon-saving potential of NbS has been identified within less industrialized countries, particularly in areas occupied by indigenous communities with insecure rights. There is a risk that NbS could shift the responsibility for decarbonization onto vulnerable communities if there is insufficient regulation.

NbS are systems-based approaches to societal challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. They are actions that protect, restore and better manage natural or modified ecosystems. Research has shown that NbS can provide relatively low-cost and readily available opportunities for CO₂ removal compared to other options. But more than that, well-designed and implemented NbS can deliver multiple benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods. Under the mitigation umbrella, however, parties to the UNFCCC increasingly fund the expansion of plantations with non-native species, even though they remove little carbon and place local livelihoods and ecosystems at risk, especially in non-forested ecosystems.