CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS
Biodiversity
Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing issues we face today. Addressing the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss requires
extraordinary levels of action across all sectors, at an unprecedented speed.
While there is recognition in both scientific and policy-making circles that the two are interconnected, in practice they are largely addressed in their own domains. The evidence shows that climate change, and particularly land use change and deforestation, affects biodiversity, with profound social, cultural, economic, and ecological impacts. A number of species have already changed their range northwards, while other species that currently occur in our region, may be pushed further north and out of their current ranges; some species may not be able to adapt to the changes.
Adapting food systems, which is the leading leading driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss, is key, and the IPCC AR6 WG2 adaptation report, as the food aspects covered here by us, shows some aspects to focus efforts (Harwatt et al., 2022).
Further Reading:
Harwatt, H., Wetterberg, K., Giritharan, A., & Benton, T. (2022). Aligning food systems with climate and biodiversity targets. DOI: 10.55317/9781784135416
IPBES-IPCC CO-SPONSORED WORKSHOP REPORT ON BIODIVERSITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE:
Pörtner, H.O., Scholes, R.J., Agard, J., Archer, E., Arneth, A., Bai, X., Barnes, D., Burrows, M., Chan, L., Cheung, W.L., Diamond, S., Donatti, C., Duarte, C., Eisenhauer, N., Foden, W., Gasalla, M. A., Handa, C., Hickler, T., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Ichii, K., Jacob, U., Insarov, G., Kiessling, W., Leadley, P., Leemans, R., Levin, L., Lim, M., Maharaj, S., Managi, S., Marquet, P. A., McElwee, P., Midgley, G., Oberdorff, T., Obura, D., Osman, E., Pandit, R., Pascual, U., Pires, A. P. F., Popp, A., ReyesGarcía, V., Sankaran, M., Settele, J., Shin, Y. J., Sintayehu, D. W., Smith, P., Steiner, N., Strassburg, B., Sukumar, R., Trisos, C., Val, A.L., Wu, J., Aldrian, E., Parmesan, C., Pichs-Madruga, R., Roberts, D.C., Rogers, A.D., Díaz, S., Fischer, M., Hashimoto, S., Lavorel, S., Wu, N., Ngo, H.T. 2021. IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop report on biodiversity and climate change; IPBES and IPCC. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4782538. Retrieved from https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2021-06/20210609_workshop_report_embargo_3pm_CEST_10_june_0.pdf