Nature Finance is Upside Down: What the 2026 UNEP Report Reveals

For every dollar the world invests in protecting nature, it spends thirty dollars destroying it. In this episode of the Climate Correction Podcast, host Shannon Maganiezin sits down with two of the authors behind the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) State of Finance for Nature 2026 report to unpack what that staggering imbalance means for biodiversity, climate resilience, economic stability, and the future of finance itself. The numbers are sobering: in 2023 alone, roughly $7.3 trillion flowed into nature-negative activities, while just $220 billion supported nature-based solutions. 

Shannon is joined by Ivo Mulder, who leads UNEP's Climate Finance Unit and has helped unlock more than one billion dollars for sustainable agriculture, forestry, and restoration across developing countries. Ivo is one of the report creators. Ivo co-founded the Natural Capital Finance Alliance and the ENCORE tool, laying the groundwork for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures. Also joining the conversation is Michael König-Sykorova, Senior Project Manager at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management and a leading expert in climate and nature finance data. Michael contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report and led key analytical components of the State of Finance for Nature 2026 report. He iwas lead author on this report and is also a founding member of the Climate Finance and Sustainability Centre at Makerere University in Uganda. 

The conversation begins with Michael walking listeners through the scope and methodology of the report, including how the team defined and measured nature-negative finance across sectors, what qualifies as nature-based solutions finance, and how the two sides of the equation can be meaningfully compared. He shares what the data reveals about trends over time, whether progress is moving fast enough, and how the report's findings were validated through rigorous peer review. 

Ivo then steps back from the numbers to explore what these findings signal about the trajectory of global finance. He examines whether nature-negative investments are starting to slow or still expanding, where the biggest synergies are emerging across the three Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity, and land degradation, and what governments, public finance institutions, private investors, and financial institutions each need to take from this report. The discussion closes with a look at the financial instruments and emerging biodiversity finance mechanisms showing the most promise for scaling investment into nature-based solutions. 

The takeaway is clear: the challenge isn't only how much we invest in protecting nature. It's where the rest of our money is going. Redirecting even a fraction of nature-negative flows could fundamentally reshape outcomes for climate, biodiversity, and global resilience. 

Resources / Links: 

• UNEP – State of Finance for Nature 2026 (SFN 2026) and State of Finance for Nature 2023 (SFN 2023). 

• Interconnectivity between climate, nature & climate risk (including impacts on GDP) 

• IMF 2024 ‘Embedded in Nature’ 

• SwissRe 2021 – The economics of climate change: No action not an option 

• Klusak et al, 2021 – Rising temperatures, falling ratings: the Effect of Climate Change on Sovereign Creditworthiness. Bennett School, Cambridge University 

• Nature Finance, 2022. Loss of nature is pushing nations towards sovereign credit downgrade and ‘bankruptcy’ 

• Some catalytic finance solutions UNEP has set up and/or supported:  

• UNEP: Why use catalytic finance to tackle tropical deforestation.  

• About the &Green Fund + &Green: Financing sustainable palm oil in Indonesia 

• Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF): video about its structure & video about its support lines 

• AGRI3 Fund: a guarantee fund to stimulate forest, food & famers in emerging markets. 

• Responsible Commodities Facility: financing responsible soy in Brazil