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Accounting for ecosystem service values in climate policy

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 596–598 (2022)Cite this article

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Ecosystem services are often omitted from climate policy owing to difficulties in estimating the economic value of climate-driven ecosystem changes. However, recent advances in data and methods can help us overcome these challenges and move towards a more comprehensive accounting of climate impacts.

Climate change is expected to be the largest driver of natural capital loss by the end of the century1, yet impacts on ecosystems are often omitted from climate policy. For example, the social cost of carbon (SCC) — an estimate of the economic damages from emitting one additional ton of carbon dioxide — does not account for projected increases in forest die-off driven by drought and heat stress, the loss of coastal wetlands to sea-level rise or increased soil erosion resulting from changes to the hydrological cycle. Omitting ecosystem impacts from the SCC effectively values environmental services that are not traded in the market at zero. Equally concerning, ecosystem values often go unaccounted for when considering climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. But many of these strategies, such as expanding renewable energy capacity or moving people out of harm’s way, require the conversion of ecosystems into other land uses.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful for guiding discussions with M. Walls, E. Fenichel and C. Boettiger.

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  1. Resources for the Future, Washington DC, USA

    Hannah Druckenmiller

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  1. Hannah Druckenmiller
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Correspondence to Hannah Druckenmiller.

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Druckenmiller, H. Accounting for ecosystem service values in climate policy. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 596–598 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01362-0

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