Maggie Baird, Billie Eilish, Alex Wolff, Rozzi Crane
Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com
When I first heard about The Nat Gala, I was intrigued, but unsure what to expect. A celebrity event for nature sounded like a clever tagline, but would it actually make a difference? By the end of the night, I left convinced that cultural clout might be exactly what the natural world has been missing – and I’ll tell you why.
I’ve been to my fair share of climate and nature events, earnest conferences, policy panels, protest marches. But nothing prepared me for this, an evening where star power and conservation collided on the red carpet, during New York’s annual ‘Climate Week’.
Jane Fonda sparkled in sequins, Billie Eilish posed in oversized couture and wise words hailed from Harrison Ford to Stella McCartney. Yet beneath the glam was a message with teeth: nature isn’t fluffy and lovable, it is in grave danger and it’s cool to care.
This is the Met Gala – but for nature.
As we all know, the Met Gala has shown for decades what the power of culture can do. The global fundraiser, directed by Anna Wintour, raises more than $30 million a year for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fashion, in other words, has its own juggernaut – a night of glitz which underwrites exhibitions, acquisitions, and the preservation of couture history. And yet, when you think about it, it’s extraordinary that nothing equivalent has ever existed for nature. Forests, oceans, soils, the very systems that make life possible, have no glamorous annual spectacle. That’s the space The Nat Gala is stepping into.
Jane Fonda, Stella McCartney and Billie Eilish. Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com
Matteo Prandoni/BFA.comThe $700 billion problem hiding in plain sight
In climate circles, we’re used to talking about the ‘trillions’ required for the energy transition.
But mention the “nature finance gap”, which stands at $710 billion a year, and most people blink. It’s a figure that was first highlighted in a landmark report by the Paulson Institute in 2020 and what it represents is the shortfall between what’s needed to protect ecosystems and the amount that actually flows into them.
In order to make material progress towards filling this ‘nature finance gap’, we need to fulfil the ‘30, 30, 30’ targets of what’s called the Global Biodiversity Framework. That means protecting 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030, at least $30 billion a year in public and private finance for biodiversity in developing countries, and reducing $30 billion in harmful subsidies that drive environmental destruction. It’s quite a task.
The Amazon rainforest of Cuyabeno, Ecuador.
AFP via Getty Images
Nature isn’t just beauty or backdrop. It’s infrastructure: forests that regulate rainfall and capture carbon, soil that grows crops, mangroves that shield cities from storm surges, oceans that generate half the oxygen we breathe and regulate the climate. But the financial world has yet to build the mechanisms, incentives, or pipelines to channel serious money into protecting it.
“Over half of GDP depends on nature. We can’t afford to keep treating it like a free resource,” Hari Balasubramanian, one of The Nat’s co-founders, tells me.
“Finance, culture or conservation alone won’t solve this glaring problem. We need a bridge between them – so we want to be that bridge.”
Sophie Hunter, Nemomte Nenquimo, Sylvia Earle, Jane Fonda, Billie Eilish
Matteo Prandoni/BFA.comGail Gallie’s gamble
The team behind The Nat is small, but mighty. Alongside conservation strategist Hari Balasubramanian is institutional investor Jay Lipman, and the woman behind it all – Gail Gallie, a former BBC marketing director and cultural tour de force.
Gail was sitting next to Jay one night at dinner, at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, when she recalls her ‘aha’ moment. Jay had just told her the nature finance gap was roughly $700 billion a year. “That sounds like a lot,” she said. “Yes – and no,” he replied, “it’s actually less than 1% of the money in global stock markets.”
That’s when it hit her – this money exists, it’s just waiting to be directed.
When I asked Gail why a gala, why now, she laughed: “Because nature has an image problem. I wanted to take the outpouring of creativity and surprise of The Met Gala and harness it for nature. Make it modern and sexy. Think Coachella – not Womad.”
“I wanted to take the outpouring of creativity and surprise of The Met Gala and harness it for nature. Make it modern and sexy. Think Coachella – not Womad.”
Coachella Festival
Getty Images for Coachella
She goes on, “The vernacular hasn’t changed in 50 years. In the 70s, you would put the TV on and see an orchestra playing over a polar bear…
It made us love the natural world, maybe, but that tactic alone doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t scream modernity, let alone – investment opportunity.”
“In the 70s, you would put the TV on and see an orchestra playing over a polar bear.
But that tactic alone doesn’t work anymore.”
A polar bear stands on sea ice, just north of Svalbard, Norway. (Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
LightRocket via Getty Images
Her plan is audacious, but it just might work. Markets don’t just respond to science or policy – they respond to cultural shifts, which shape the norm. Crypto didn’t become a trillion-dollar market because of technical white papers overnight. It became cool – it became the zeitgeist.
Gail’s gamble is that nature can too.
From Billie Eilish to Nemonte Nenquimo
On the night itself, famous faces reinforced the gravity of the moment. Billie Eilish, Jane Fonda, Al Gore, Stella McCartney, Brian Cox and Sophie Hunter all lent their words to the cause.
Harrison Ford, speaking from the heart, reminded the audience that “nature doesn’t need people, people need nature,” adding frankly, “we tell our children everything will be alright. But it’s not alright.”
Sabrina Elba urged the room of donors and investors to “choose action over apathy,” insisting that this night must be “more than a beautiful gala – it must be a turning point.”
Sabrina Dhowre Elba
David Benthal/BFA.com
We heard rousing calls from Indigenous leaders. Nemonte Nenquimo, an activist and member of the Waorani Nation from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador, told us, “I feel the climate crisis in my body. Indigenous people are the ones protecting our forests and we want to join forces with people all over the world.”
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a Chadian environmental activist and geographer from the Mbororo pastoralist community, who works to protect indigenous rights, declared, “For indigenous people every day is The Nat gala. We think about nature every day.”
Nemonte Nenquimo and Harrison Ford
Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com
The music? Singer-songwriter Rozzi sang about the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year. You could hear a pin drop when she got to the hook: ‘orange skies that should be blue’, ending on a hauntingly high note that sent shivers through the room.
“Orange skies that should be blue.”
For dinner, a truffle, sage and butternut ‘caramelle’ stole the show, with wild berries and mascarpone for dessert, crafted by Chef Rōze Traore and We Are Ona. As you might imagine, ambitious sustainability goals were at the heart of the event itself too. It might not have been obvious, but locally sourced, seasonal, veggie food, circular principles and a stringent zero-waste approach underpinned the lavish do.
Singer-songwriter Rozzi Crane at The Nat Gala / David Benthal/BFA.com
David Benthal/BFA.comWill it shift the dial?
As I walked out into the New York night, I kept thinking about Rozzi’s song, Orange Skies. It lingered more than any speech or statistic. I realised how rarely I feel the climate viscerally at the events I go to. The Nat Gala gave me that, albeit wrapped in beguiling celebrity sparkle.
Inside the climate and nature sphere, we often talk to ourselves. Policy-makers, scientists, activists, journalists. The urgency is real, but the audience is narrow.
“Trusted messengers matter,” Gail told me. “For some people that’s a scientist. For others, it’s Billie Eilish.”
The question now is whether glamour can translate into grit – into the billions needed every year to restore wetlands, protect forests, and heal oceans. The goal is to raise around $20 million from The Nat Gala – these funds will be distributed by Conservation International, UNICEF and Open Planet.
But the mission is to shift the way we value nature in the long-term. Culture alone won’t close the gap. But it can open the door.