5. POLICY MEASURES AND SYNERGIES
NbS are fundamental in the plan and design of policies and actions, and measures that promote synergies in addressing climate, biodiversity and pollution span across a range of scales. It is an ecosystem-based approach, but more explicitly aimed at integrating solutions into policy and planning. This study has a wide scope and thereby includes measures from national regulations, strategies, and policies as well as regional planning and governance. The functioning of the measures in the implementation stage will be highlighted through a selection of cases. In this section, we present measures that have potential to simultaneously address synergies between climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
5.1 International agreements and protocols
Synergies can be promoted through “soft” collaboration mechanisms or “hard” policy coherence.
Tsioumani (2022)
Policy responses that simultaneously address biodiversity, climate change and pollution are still limited on the international political stage, despite the growing amount of scientific literature that point at the interlinkages between the issues. International agreements have mainly been focused at addressing one major environmental issue, and they seldomly refer explicitly to each other.
However, it can be seen that unintentional synergies emerge through several international agreements and cross-national cooperation forums. This is because more parameters than the theme in focus of the given effort benefit from the initiatives that are proposed and implemented.
International instruments relevant for the Nordic countries on biodiversity, climate change or pollution include:
- UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
- Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
- Paris Agreement
- UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
- EU policies, strategies and directives including
- EU Biodiversity Strategy
- EU Green Deal
- Habitats Directive
- Birds' Directive
- Water Framework Directive
- CAP
- EU Forestry Policy
- EIA Directive
- Ambient Air Quality Directive
- Upcoming Nature Restoration Law
The listed agreements generally have converging overall objectives, as they aim towards a goal of addressing global change issues.
It should also be mentioned that there is an increasing focus on promoting mutually supportive outcomes, especially in the COPs for UNFCCC and CBD, where the UNFCCC increasingly focuses on the role of nature for climate change and the CBD increasingly focuses on the role of climate change for biodiversity conservation. Other opportunities for synergies at the international level include, among others, efforts under the Joint Liaison Group of the Rio Conventions, and work in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Tsioumani (2022)
UNDP (2019)
WWF (2020)
5.2 Legislative measures
National regulations for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation and pollution are in place in each of the Nordic countries. National environmental targets set the stage for political strategies and regulations, and extensive monitoring programs observe ecosystem health. Implementation of NbS actions becomes more achievable when targets, actions and monitoring efforts are specified, for example in national climate and biodiversity strategies.
Environmental laws are undeniably central for the promotion of synergies, as deficiencies in the legal framework can lead to undesirable environmental degradation, especially when adverse economic interests are involved.
Prakash (2021)
Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action (2022)
Legislative measures are crucial for regulating relevant measures for promoting synergies, and thereby also serve the purpose of safeguarding rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. Improper implementation of NbS pose a risk for local communities; for example, with regards to their access to land and natural resources and inclusion in decision-making processes.
DIIS (2022)
Types of legislative measures that are relevant for synergetic effects, include nature conservation acts, land distribution, and environmental protection laws. The specific national regulations relevant for promoting synergies are described further for each country and exemplified through the case collection.
5.3 Voluntary agreements
Voluntary Agreement is a term that can be applied to agreements between affected stakeholders and a state level authority representing the government. The voluntary agreements can for example be relevant when aiming at altering land use, and where expropriation is not a preferrable or relevant approach.
Within environmental regulation, a definition of voluntary agreements put forward by the OECD can be used to describe the measure, although the term ‘firms’ could be broadened and cover different types of stakeholders: “Environmental voluntary agreements are arrangements between firms and regulators in which firms voluntarily commit to actions that improve the natural environment. The regulator encourages and/or supervises these actions.”
OECD (2003)
Further, OECD defines three different types of VA:
- Public Voluntary Programme
Commitments devised by the environmental agency and in which individual stakeholders are invited to participate. Since participation in the voluntary programme is a choice left to individual stakeholders, they can be seen as “optional regulations”.
- Negotiated Agreements
Involve commitments for environmental protection developed through bargaining between a public authority and industry/stakeholder. They are frequently signed at the national level between an affected sector and a public authority, although agreements with individual stakeholders are also possible. The negotiated agreements tend to be formal, but not necessarily legally binding.
- Unilateral Commitments
Unilateral commitments are set by the industry acting independently without any involvement of a public authority. The unilateral commitments are, strictly speaking, outside the overall definition (which included the participation of a regulator), but some unilateral commitments include a third party for monitoring or validation, hereby establishing the credibility created through participation of an authority.Bauer & Fischer-Bogason (2011)
The Voluntary Agreements can further be subdivided into different setups
- Individual/collective
- Local/global
- Binding/nonbinding
- Open/closed access to third parties
- Target based or implementation based
The parameters illustrate that there is a vast variety within the use of this type of measure.
Bauer & Fischer-Bogason (2011)
In an agri-environmental context, voluntary agreements with landowners are increasingly used to promote nature conservation for example by setting land aside or by changing land management practices. It provides a concrete opportunity for efforts that can have positive effects on climate mitigation and adaptation, pollution, and biodiversity. Voluntary programs already exist across the Nordic countries. Landowners are often rewarded with monetary or other benefits for their participation.
5.4 Financial measures
The use of economic instruments in environmental regulation can offer an alternative to the more traditional ‘command-and-control’ instruments, meaning the direct regulation that is traditionally used.
Danish EPA (2017)
Public financing is the most important type for scaling up investments in synergy measures. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is another type of financial measure to support protection of natural areas that supply ecosystem services - contributions from nature to society. PES schemes can be structured in many ways and should be adapted to local conditions to ensure maximum efficiency.
On an international level, funding for nature conservation is performed large scale through EU programmes such as LIFE and Horizon. There are several examples of projects that aim directly at promoting synergistic measures through NbS and NbS was a part of the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation.
IUCN (2022)
Public bodies, private organisations and communities all play a role in financing synergy measures. Blended finance can be used as a method to leverage financing. It is a term for spending public money on projects to make them attractive to investments from private money. This is a way to make a stronger investment case, promoting the currently underrepresented private financing in the NbS sector. While investments that promote synergy measures must increase dramatically, capital flows that negatively affect nature must, on the other hand be reduced. This is from the EU level sought by applying the taxonomy to public investments as part of the Green Deal scheme.
5.5 National, regional and local planning
NbS are very often related to land use; making national, regional and local planning important. The Nordic countries have quite similar governing and administrative structures when it comes to physical planning. This is especially the case for the municipal level, which is relevant for the promotion of NbS, as the success of NbS can depend largely on the extent to which it becomes integrated in mainstream planning and development processes.
Haxwell et al. (2019)
Important steps for the planning of NbS at local level are identified as:
Haxwell et al. (2019)
- The involvement of various stakeholders and actors in the review process.
- Achieving a good balance of regulations (command-and-control mechanisms) and incentives (market-based instruments).
- Reduction of bureaucracy through removal of redundant rules and regulations.
- Streamlining of national, regional, and local policies to better realise the overarching goals and targets.
- Institutionalising regular review activities to enable continuous improvement.
The authority of the regional levels does not have the same character in the Nordic countries, and this does to some level provide different planning process environments. As an example, Finland’s legally binding regional plans are used to pinpoint the general structures of land use, whereas the Danish regions have no planning authority.
Moreover, it differs how detailed planning regulation is seen from government/state level. This is further complicated by the fact that there are significant differences between the countries in terms of the type of policy instruments that are used at the different levels, their legal status, and how they interplay (for example strategic, framework and regulatory instruments).
5.6 Management approaches
Tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution through joint measures requires new approaches to environmental management. This involves administrative practices as well as on-the-ground actions. Synergistic measures need to be promoted throughout the management process and involve all affected stakeholders in order to be successful.
A management strategy that is increasingly used to address multiple global change issues is adaptive management. Adaptive management provides a dynamic approach, suitable for addressing multiple targets. It builds on a non-linear concept, where actions are continuously monitored and adapted to new knowledge, lessons learned and conditions.
Rist et al. (2013)
Figure 4. The adaptive management process. Adapted from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research
Adaptive management is guided by a process of several steps, as seen in Figure 4 above. The steps do not follow a universal model and should be adapted to the specific project. Additional to the steps outlined in the figure, an efficient adaptive management model for synergistic measures can include the following stages:
Brears (2020)
Plan
- Assessment of current conditions, including local challenges, risks and community needs
- Determination of goals and objectives that promote synergies
- Establish needed resources for successful implementation, long-term monitoring and planning
- Design of management plan based on the goals, stakeholder responses, and functionality requirements
Do
- Implementation strategies according to locally relevant criteria and pre-defined plan and design
- Ensure ongoing funding and resource provisions for management and monitoring
- Set milestones and targets
Evaluate and learn
- Monitor outcome, effects and impacts based on key desired outcomes and performance indicators
- Evaluate the results with wide inclusion of stakeholders
- Modify management plan based on monitoring and evaluation
Adjust
- Deliver aftercare management and adjust ongoing actions to promote effectiveness
Adaptive management is especially useful in the context of multiple problems and the application of NbS since it recognises uncertainty of global change and that management actions are needed despite uncertain outcomes. This further enforces the importance of documentation and monitoring to strengthen scientific learning and development of improved management practices. This is well suited for management with synergistic goals that may have higher complexity than single-goal management measures.
Cohen-Shacham et al. (2019)
There is, however, a growing knowledgebase of successful management approaches to promote synergies between climate change adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity preservation and decreased pollution. The Nature-based solutions Initiative has a best practice case study platform where management practices from around the globe are presented.
Nature-base Solutions Initiative (2022)
Conservation Evidence (2022)