Reyes García, VictoriaVillasante Larramendi, Carlos SebastiánBenessaiah, KarinaPandit, RamAgrawal, ArunClaudet, JoachimGaribaldi, Lucas A.Kabisa, MulakoPereira, LauraZinngrebe, Yves2025-12-222025-12-222025Reyes-García, V., Villasante, S., Benessaiah, K. et al. The costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline. Ambio 54, 1128–1141 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02147-30044-7447https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44629Economic sectors that drive nature decline are heavily subsidized and produce large environmental externalities. Calls are increasing to reform or eliminate subsidies and internalize the environmental costs of these sectors. We compile data on subsidies and externalities across six sectors driving biodiversity loss—agriculture, fossil fuels, forestry, infrastructure, fisheries and aquaculture, and mining. The most updated estimates suggest that subsidies to these sectors total between US$1.7 and US$3.2 trillion annually, while environmental externalities range between US$10.5 and US$22.6 trillion annually. Moreover, data gaps suggest that these figures underestimate the global magnitude of subsidies and externalities. We discuss the need and opportunities of building a baseline to account for the costs of subsidies and externalities of economic activities driving nature decline. A better understanding of the complexity, size, design, and effects of subsidies and externalities of such economic sectors could facilitate and expedite discussions to strengthen multilateral rules for their reform.engThe Author(s) 2025, This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were madeAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BiodiversityEnvironmentally harmful subsidiesExternalitySubsidy reformSustainable financeTransformative changejournal article10.1007/S13280-025-02147-31654-7209open access