Nature-based solutions (NBS) can contribute to equitable and sustainable development across Latin America and the Caribbean and represent an important investment opportunity for national and subnational governments, infrastructure service providers, development banks, and corporations.

Governments across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) face challenges in extending and maintaining infrastructure to serve their populations, especially as climate change and ecosystem degradation endanger communities and infrastructure assets across the region

Innovative financing models are emerging globally to advance nature-based solutions (NBS) that can cost-effectively enhance infrastructure performance, meet Sustainable Development Goals, and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. Despite the potential for NBS to generate attractive returns and provide significant cost-savings, these financing models remain underutilized.

The Climate Change Action Plan describes the IDB Groups progress since 2016 to support the regions need for low-carbon and climate-resilient development finance and its plan to raise climate ambition continuously in the region. The Second Update to the Institutional Strategy specifies that cross cutting issues, including climate change, continue to hamper development and that the IDB Group will renew its commitment to address them.

This work is aimed at nontraditional climate policy actors such as the finance and planning ministries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The objective is to provide a glimpse into the existing, limited, regional examples of how effective climate policy may be achieved while also contributing to sustainable economic and social development.

Sustainability is a core element of the IDBs work. Long-term economic growth, and the reduction of poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean depend on development that is economically, financially, environmentally, socially, and institutionally sustainable. The IDBs annual Sustainability Report presents our approach to sustainability and showcases operations and research that are contributing to the sustainable development of the region.

This monograph presents expert assessments of four different facets of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) forests at the start of the 2020s. In Chapter 1, Dan Nepstad and coauthors distill lessons from case studies of the application of various approaches to forest conservation and restoration in four countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru. In Chapter 2, Carlos Nobre and coauthors examine the two-way links between forests and climate change. 

In preparation for the next UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) and UNFCCC Climate Change Conference (COP26), the IDB Group organized “One Region, One Commitment”, a virtual summit to showcase the regions multiple achievements in the climate change and biodiversity agendas in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has precipitated unprecedented health, social and economic crises across the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. All countries in the region moved quickly to implement rescue policies to safeguard lives and livelihoods.

El Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC por sus siglas en inglés) indica que para cumplir con el objetivo del Acuerdo de París de limitar el aumento de la temperatura global con respecto a los niveles preindustriales a entre 1,5 C y 2 C se requiere alcanzar cero emisiones netas de dióxido de carbono (CO2), así como profundas reducciones en las emisiones de otros gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) hacia mediados de siglo (IPCC 2018).

Efforts to boost economic growth after the havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offer the op - portunity to invest in a better type of development—one that can substantial - ly increase adaptive capacity in the face of the physical impacts of climate change while also supporting the move toward net zero carbon emissions. 

Identifying and evaluating climate expenditures in the public sector, known  as  budget  tagging,  has generated  increasing  attention  from multiple  stakeholders,  not  only  to  assess  the  government’s climate change   policy,   but   also   to   monitor   fiscal   risks   associated   with increasing  and unpredictable  climate  change  impacts.