With backers including David Attenborough, a big push is underway to better protect nature, as a smart way to curb climate change and protect planetary life-support systems that provide us with oxygen, rain, food, medicines and more.

But how best to do it? Planting trees - something corporations and governments are rushing to do - shouldn't be the top priority, biodiversity experts warn. Instead, protecting and restoring existing natural forests, wetlands and other ecosystems is the best bet.

Countries and companies are struggling to cut deforestation and other natural damage, however, and turning things around won't be cheap.

Protecting the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems, and repairing the damage done to them by humans could cost an eye-popping $700 billion a year in extra funding over the next decade, biodiversity experts say.

The good news is, taking steps to better protect nature - like giving women who cook on smoky wood fires cleaner cooking options - can have plenty of other benefits.

Shifts in government policy also could help drive the changes needed to protect both nature and the climate, from cutting off financing for coal-power plants to eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels.

How do you get those shifts? A Democratic win in November elections in the United States could move that big-emitting country back into the forefront of climate action, analysts say.

And simply talking to more people about climate and nature risks - in a way they can relate to - can help boost pressure on governments, says pioneering climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

In London, a community energy group that helps people cut their bills and stay more comfortable is having those kinds of conversations, and pointing out the real benefits of climate action.

"We have a climate emergency... We need to reduce our energy usage," says Alex Hartley, a voluntary director at CREW. And "we haven't got time to wait".

See you next week!

Laurie

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