1084. The Need to Simultaneously Address Biodiversity and Climate Change

The climate is the warmest it has been in 125,000 years, extreme weather events are increasing in frequency, and global average temperatures are already 1°C above the 1850 – 1900 average and could reach 1.5 – 2°C in the near future. Natural habitats are becoming increasingly fragmented and untouched nature is shrinking. Changes in climate and natural habitats are causing shifts in species distributions and altering the composition of ecological communities, with one million species at risk of extinction. At the same time, the frequency of outbreaks and spread of infectious diseases among wildlife, livestock, plants, and humans is increasing. Anthropogenic factors such as environmental pollution, deforestation, and farmland expansion have been identified as the causes behind these environmental changes. They act as checks on each other, while in other instances, they reinforce one another, triggering a chain reaction through feedback loops.

Later this year, world leaders will convene for two separate international conferences to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. From October 21 to November 1, 2024, the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be held in Cali, Colombia, and one week later, in November, the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

A paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology highlighted the need to simultaneously address issues of biodiversity and climate change.

The global climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are inextricably linked, but there are currently no policy tools to tackle them together. This is problematic because there is no international platform to design a coordinated and coherent policy framework that aligns targets across biodiversity and climate change linkages.

The paper emphasized the need for a collaborative programme of work between UNFCCC and CBD for the successful implementation of both the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Such collaborative programmes are expected to fill the current global governance vacuum and address significant implementation gaps, while at the same time promoting innovation and synergies in climate and biodiversity action.

Reference
Idil Boran, Nathalie Pettorelli. The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement need a joint work programme for climate, nature and people. Journal of Applied Ecology. First published: 22 July 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14721

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki, Information Program