EU looks to 'nature credits' to fill green funding gap

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union will develop rules for "nature credits" that pay farmers and foresters to take care of ecosystems, in an attempt to make this work more economically beneficial, the European Commission said on Monday.

The EU is hunting for ways to increase funding for protecting the environment, without further straining public budgets stretched thin by other priorities like defence.

The EU, which pays out huge subsidies to farmers under its Common Agricultural Policy, estimates it has a 37-billion-euro ($43 billion) annual shortfall in funding needed to protect biodiversity.

The Commission will this year form an expert group - including governments, farmers, local communities and scientists - to work on developing methodologies for "nature credits", and fund a pilot project for these credits by 2027, it said.

This would let companies or countries buy credits issued by farmers, foresters and other land managers protecting nature by, for example, planting trees, restoring a wetland, or switching to regenerative types of agriculture.

The expert group will assess how to certify nature credits and govern a market for them, before deciding whether to fix this into EU law.

"This is not about turning nature into a commodity, but about recognising and rewarding actions that restore and sustain nature," EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters.

The idea mirrors a more developed market for "carbon credits", in which projects that reduce CO2 emissions sell credits to companies seeking to support efforts to address climate change. However, the carbon credit market has been mired by recent scandals in which projects that issued credits failed to deliver the climate benefits they claimed.

Brussels proposed an EU climate target for 2040 last week which would allow countries to count international carbon credits towards the EU goal for the first time.

The Commission said on Monday it was aware of the "challenges and opportunities" carbon credit markets had highlighted.

($1 = 0.8519 euros)

(Reporting by Kate Abnett)