Ensuring that nature-based solutions for climate mitigation address multiple global challenges

The protection, restoration, management, and sustainable use of natural and modified ecosystems to address climate change mitigation have received much global attention in recent years. Those types of actions are, however, often not designed to also address other global challenges, and so they miss an opportunity to provide important non-mitigation benefits and compromise their mitigation potential. Here, we highlight the importance of planning Nature-based Solutions for mitigation while considering the suite of global challenges that societies face, and we propose a set of considerations to ensure that those types of solutions also provide climate adaptation, biodiversity, and/or human well-being benefits. Planning Nature-based Solutions for climate mitigation that can also address other global challenges is very timely because every nature-based effort should grasp the opportunity to address a variety of pressing issues in order to allow for the continued delivery of mitigation and other benefits in this critical decade.

Automated summary

The protection, restoration, management, and sustainable use of natural and modified ecosystems for climate change mitigation has gained global attention. However, these actions often lack consideration of other global challenges, missing the opportunity to provide additional benefits and compromising their potential for mitigation. Planning Nature-based Solutions for climate mitigation while addressing multiple global challenges is crucial in ensuring the continued delivery of mitigation and other benefits.