FEATURED TITLES
CHANGING WEALTH OF NATIONS 2021 Managing Assets for the Future By the World Bank
Wealth, measured comprehensively to include all assets (produced, human, and natural capital) underpins national income, and sustained growth over the long term requires investment in this broad portfolio of assets. Changing Wealth of Nations 2020 firmly establishes wealth as a measure of sustainability and key component of country analytics by 1) expanding the coverage and improving the quality of all assets, notably natural capital, and 2) demonstrating how wealth accounts can be applied in analytics to areas of major policy concern, including climate change and natural resource policy reform.
September 2021. 250 pages. Stock no. C211590 (ISBN: 978-1-4648-1590-4). US$48.50
THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR NATURE By Giovanni Ruta and Raffaello Cervigni
Biodiversity and ecosystems are being lost at an alarming rate. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), recently warned that the health of ecosystems on which humans and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than projected. Around 1 million animal and plant species (out of an estimated 8 million in total) are now threatened with extinction, many within decades. This is more than ever before in human history. The average abundance of native species in most major landbased habitats has fallen by at least 20 percent, mostly since 1900. More than 40 percent of amphibian species, almost 33 percent of reef forming corals, and more than one-third of all marine mammals are threatened. The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10 percent under threat. At least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century; more than 9 percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, and with at least 1,000 more breeds are still threatened.
November 2021. 150 pages. Stock no. C211749 (ISBN: 978-1-4648-1749-6). US$43.00
This will eventually translate into impacts on economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide. Current negative trends in biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress toward 80 percent (35 out of 44) of the assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans, and land (SDGs 1, 2, 3, 6, 11, 13, 14, and 15). The loss of biodiversity has been shown to have not only environment consequences but also developmental, economic, security, societal, and moral consequences.
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