Download DIMESA_170608_Ecosystem accounts

DIMESA
Meeting of 17 June 2008
Copenhagen
Ecosystem Accounting
“Global warming may dominate headlines today.
Ecosystem degradation will do so tomorrow”
Corporate Ecosystems Services review, WRI et al. March 2008
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
What’s at stake – human and planetary well being
Human Well-being and
Poverty Reduction
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Basic material for a good life
Health
Good Social Relations
Human
Security
Well-being
Freedom of choice
and action
Indirect Drivers of Change
 Demographic
 Economic (globalization, trade,
market and policy framework)
 Sociopolitical (governance and
Indirect framework)
institutional
 Science
and Technology
Drivers
 Cultural and Religious
Direct Drivers of Change
Ecosystem
Life
on Earth:
Services
Biodiversity
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Changes in land use
Species
introduction or removal
Direct
Technology adaptation and use
Drivers
External
inputs (e.g., irrigation)
Resource consumption
Climate change
Natural physical and biological
drivers (e.g., volcanoes)
Accounting for ecosystem costs and benefits
at different scales…
Global scale
National &
regional
government,
European
market
Action level,
local scale
Amvrakikos,
Migratory
Doñana,
Spain:
Birds
Greece:
Flyways, Wetlands
& Bird Wetland
Water,
Wetland
Flu
management,
Prevention
& Strawberries
Water & Fish
… & accounts for connecting different scales
LEAC/ Landscape Ecological Potential 1990-2000, 1km² grid
(Source: Ecosystem Accounting for Mediterranean Wetlands, an EEA feasibility study for TEEB)
Natural Park of Camargue (France)
Change
1990
1990-2000
Legend
Camargue Regional Park, France
Change in net LEP 1990 to 2000
1 km² grid, range : -100 to +100
Improvement/ Highest : 47
Degradation/ Lowest : -33
The economic questions behind ecosystem accounting
• Risks of unsustainable use of the living natural capital are
ignored: the negative impacts of over-harvesting, force-feeding
with fertilisers, intoxication, introduction of species, fragmentation
by roads, or sealing of soil by urban development have no direct
monetary counterpart in GDP or corporate accounts.
• The natural capital is not even amortised in accounting books of
companies and in the national accounts – no allowance is made
for maintaining ecosystems’ critical functions and services. The
full cost of domestic products is not covered in many cases by
their price.
• This is as well the case of the price of imported products made
from degraded ecosystems: their full cost is not covered by their
price.
• Actual value for people of free ecosystem services is not
accounted in their final consumption (the market tells: price is
zero).
SEEA2003: enlargement of SNA1993
for a better description of the economy-environment relation
Revision  SEEA2012
Impacts on ecosystems & related
Natural resources
Ecosystems
services/benefits
Economic
Non-economic
assets (SNA)
assets
Opening
stocks
Volume
Opening 1
Volume
2
Opening
stocks
State
Statistical Standard
Statistical
Standard
Non Standard
Standard
Non
Economic Accounts
Accounts
activities,
Changes
SNA
Changes in
Changes

transactions 
NAMEA,
 natural
stocks
in
stocks
in state
and other
expenditure,
ecosystems,
processes,
flows
physical quantities,
quality,
etc.
sub-soil, energy,
valuation…
value of economic
Closing
Closing assets
Closing
stocks
stocks
state
Described in SNA
Macro-ecological closure
(non-linear feedback, spatial issues)
RM HASSAN - UN The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (UN 2003) RANESA Workshop June 12-16, 2005 Maputo
SEEA Integrating Ecosystems
Physical flows
Monetary flows/valuation
Assets valuation
Natural capital / assets
Subsoil Assets
[stocks]
Ecosystem Assets
[stocks and resilience]
Rest of
the World
Subsoil Assets
[stocks]
Material & Energy Flows
Ecosyste
m
Functional
Services
NAMEA
Environmental
Expenditures, Taxes
SNA flows & assets
Ecosystem
Assets
[stocks and
resilience]
Ecosystem
Services
Additional
Ecosystem
Maintenance
Costs
Additional
Ecosystem
Costs
in Imports
(less
in Exports)
Application of ecosystem accounting foreseen for…
• Eureca! 2012
• MA follow-up 2015
• IPBES, The Intergovernmental Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem services
• IPES, International Payments for Ecosystem Services
• TEEB, The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity
• Adaptability to Climate Change
• Thematic Strategy Sustainable Use of Resource
• ESEA, European Strategy for Environmental Accounting
• Data centers related to land and ecosystems (Go4
recommendation)
• Beyond GDP
• National initiatives
• Corporate accounting guidelines for environmental liability