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IAMC

Publication

World Bank report: Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital

Nearly all types of natural capital—the world’s stock of resources provided by nature—are in decline. Combining cutting-edge, integrated natural science and economic models with an extensive new global dataset, Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital offers a novel approach to address the foundational challenges of sustainability to find

Nearly all types of natural capital—the world’s stock of resources provided by nature—are in decline.

Combining cutting-edge, integrated natural science and economic models with an extensive new global dataset, Nature’s Frontiers: Achieving Sustainability, Efficiency, and Prosperity with Natural Capital offers a novel approach to address the foundational challenges of sustainability to find that economic development and poverty reduction do not need to come at the cost of a livable planet.

The report indicates that significant efficiency gaps exist in nearly every country. Closing these gaps can address many of the world’s pressing economic and environmental problems—economic productivity, health, food and water security, and climate change. Although the approach outlined in this report will entail demanding policy reforms, the costs of inaction will be far higher.

Read the report

More publications

A harmonised dataset for Earth system foundation models

Foundation models for Earth systems have so far been trained primarily on physical climate and weather data, with limited representation of the human systems that both drive and respond to environmental change. The lack of a unified global training resource that combines climate, land, ocean, cryosphere, infrastructure, hazards, and socioeconomic