Conference Agenda

The pressure of climate change and its interaction with biodiversity change call for societal action but also careful long-term capacity building. Target 14 of the Kunming- Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is to ensure the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes. This is to guide the use and conservation of natural capital in a sustainable and welfare- enhancing way. To reach this target, a deeper knowledge of the interplay between natural and socioeconomic dynamics is needed to improve both the measurement of natural capital as well as its valuation as part of decision-making on projects or policies that affect natural capital and biodiversity. Economic theory provides the conceptual basis for valuing natural capital; empirical approaches feed the theory with data. However, bridging the gap between economic theory, policy, and practical implementation remains a major challenge.

Contributions of environmental economics to climate and biodiversity policies are manifold, ranging from consulting in specific litigation cases of environmental damages to assessments of values used for natural capital accounting and decision-making at the global level. In this session, we invite four speakers - two from academia and two practitioners - who intensively work on the process of putting findings from environmental economics (both theoretical and empirical) into actual policy processes. With our session we aim to inform environmental economists about the needs of policymakers with regard to the valuation of natural capital and at the same time create a better link between theoretical approaches to valuing natural capital and the eventual practical application.