Is $230 Billion "a Lot of Money"?

For you or I, yes, for the world? No.

I recently had a conversation with someone close to me, someone I deeply respect, about the $230 billion baseline needed annually to protect biodiversity. To say the least, the conversation left me frustrated. I was talking about how ridiculous it is that we can´t fund this, and this other person replied “it is really a lot of money”. So, let´s see if 230 billion is a lot of money. 

Let’s start with the obvious: if you or I were suddenly handed $230 billion, it would be an unfathomable amount of money. It’s so overwhelming that we’d probably wonder if it were even legal to possess such a sum, or what kind of hidden strings might be attached. Would saying yes mean going to jail because it’s dirty money? For any single individual, this isn’t just "a lot of money"—it’s an inconceivable amount of money. 

But here’s the thing: we, as individuals, are part of a much larger economic system. We contribute to this system by paying income taxes, VAT on everyday purchases, rent, property taxes, and service fees. We are the cogs in a giant clockwork mechanism that keeps governments running, people employed, and societies fed and housed. Within this massive machine, $230 billion isn’t being handed to one person—it’s a collective investment for the benefit of all life on Earth: every single person, plant, and animal. 

So yes, for you and me, $230 billion is an absurd amount.  

And yet.  

Putting $230 Billion into perspective

In 2023, global military spending hit approximately $2,443 billion, a number that looks like this: $2,443,000,000,000 (SIPRI, 2024). That’s ten times the baseline amount needed to preserve the biodiversity that sustains our ecosystems. We’re willing to spend trillions on developing better weapons, more weapons, "just-in-case" weapons, and weapons to secure more resources (allegedly). But when it comes to protecting the planet that gives us air, water, and food, suddenly 10% of that, $230 billion, feels like too much?

Now, consider the investments made in technology. The global tech industry is valued at trillions of dollars. We’ve (and I say we, because money doesn´t come out of thin air, it is a value that we assign to things, and things have to be done, and purchased, for money to exist. So you and I are also part of that machinery that makes money possible, so when “governments” or “companies” create, invest, and spend, and loose, it is still “we” who invested, spent, or lost) poured astronomical sums into developing smartphones, satellites, and AI—all of which have undeniably improved our lives. Yet, when it comes to biodiversity, the literal foundation of our survival, I often hear people say, "that’s really a lot of money."(1)

And these are just a few examples. I felt a surge of frustration imagining people reading headlines about the $230 billion needed for biodiversity and concluding, “This is too much money.” It’s absurd. So, I decided to do some very simple (probably flawed math, as I suck at math, but if I can do it, you can too, and probably your children can do it better than me). I looked at the Forbes list of the richest people in the world as of April 22, 2025, and created a straightforward Excel file. Then, I looked how much of these individuals' wealth would be sufficient to fund biodiversity initiatives. 

The top 56 people on that list — fewer than the number of guests at most weddings — collectively hold wealth amounting to roughly $3.917 trillion, that´s 3,917,000,000,000. That is 3 whole zeros more than the amount we spend on military alone. 

Let me repeat that: 56 individuals could easily afford the $230 billion needed, and still remain otherworldly rich. Even if you expanded it to 200 individuals, they’d still be unimaginably rich after covering the total cost. 

All of this is, of course, a very light analysis. It doesn’t even begin to touch on the complexities of national economies, the role of rich versus poor countries, or whether wealthier nations should bear a greater responsibility for funding biodiversity efforts. This is simply an easy way to debunk the argument that "$230 billion is a lot of money." It’s a straightforward exercise to show that, in the grand scheme of global wealth and spending, this figure is far from insurmountable, and very easily available to the super rich.

If you want a much deeper and professional analysis of these numbers many (better than  me) people have been doing incredible work:  

Fiona Harvey has written about his  

Oxfam is doing tremendous work on this, so is Greenpeace and Earth.com

Why Does $230 Billion feel like "a Lot"?

I believe part of the answer lies in perception. Unless you have a strong background in sustainability or work closely with nature, it may be difficult to see nature as something that requires investment. It’s easy to take for granted the forests, oceans, and pollinators that quietly work in the background, sustaining life as we know it. Unlike satellites or smartphones, the benefits of biodiversity are often invisible—until they’re gone.

Perhaps we’ve been conditioned to think of nature as "free," something that exists independently and doesn’t need funding. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Ecosystems are collapsing under the weight of human activity, and without intervention, the cost of inaction will dwarf $230 billion. The consequences—food insecurity, natural disasters, and health crises—will be far more expensive to address in the future.

The following authors have written far better and more in-depth research and analysis on this:  

Petrescu-Mag RM, Burny P, Banatean-Dunea I, Petrescu DC. How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People's Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People's Perceptions of Climate Change. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Apr 2;19(7):4280. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19074280. PMID: 35409962; PMCID: PMC8998260. 

The Case for Investing in Biodiversity

Protecting biodiversity is not just an environmental issue; it’s an economic one. Healthy ecosystems provide countless "services" that benefit humanity, from clean water and air to crop pollination and climate regulation. The value of these services has been estimated at $125 trillion annually, far exceeding the $230 billion needed to protect them (WWF’s Living Planet Index, 2018).

Unless we want future generations to walk around with oxygen masks, even something as basic as breathing without assistance should not be taken for granted. For the hundreds of millions already wearing masks in the most polluted cities in the world, this reality is not invisible.

In essence, investing in biodiversity is one of the smartest economic decisions we can make. It’s not just about saving plants and animals; it’s about safeguarding the systems that make life on Earth possible—for us and for future generations.

So no, $230 billion is not a lot of money. It´s a lot of money for you and I, but, looking at the Forbes list or global wealth, it really isn’t.

(1) (Smartphones: The global smartphone market is enormous. According to reports by Statista, the global smartphone industry revenue just under $500 billion in recent years. This includes production, marketing, and technological advancements in mobile devices(CAGR, 2025-2029). Satellites:

The space industry, which includes satellite development, was valued at approximately $469 billion in 2021 (source: Space Foundation, 2022). The costs of developing and launching satellites are substantial, with individual satellites often costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

AI: Global investment in artificial intelligence is also staggering. According to IDC (International Data Corporation, 2024), worldwide AI spending was expected to reach over $300 billion annually by 2026, with significant investment from both private and public sectors.