Global problems need global solutions. In October and November the world’s governments are meeting to discuss the climate and biodiversity crises at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (Cop) summits in Colombia, for biodiversity, and in Azerbaijan, for climate. While these two summits are just weeks apart, they are a world away from the joined-up thinking we need to ensure that biodiversity and climate issues are tackled in an integrated way.
Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, and when many different kinds of species interact in ecosystems like woodlands, peatlands and grasslands these ecosystems function well and are in a healthy state. Healthy ecosystems help to regulate the climate by recycling nutrients and capturing carbon from the atmosphere. Unhealthy ecosystems instead leak greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Indeed the land-use, land-use change and forestry sector in Ireland is a net emitter of greenhouse gases including from some grasslands, harvested and drained bogs and unsustainable forestry.
The global climate and biodiversity summits are framed as being watchdogs and enablers for progress towards their respective 2030 and 2050 targets. Researchers from Canada and the UK have recently analysed the mechanisms available in the two UN agreements to align climate and biodiversity actions.
While there have been voluntary statements to align climate and biodiversity actions, there is currently no formal mechanism to ensure that the agreements are implemented together, taking into account the joint opportunities and risks of the actions needed. For example, there are no mechanisms to identify and deter climate actions, such as inappropriate carbon offsets, that damage ecosystems.
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Governments are held to account based on their agreed commitments, and the implementation of climate and biodiversity actions is monitored separately according to its respective agreement. The Paris agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change which aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees” and to pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees”. While the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework sets the ambition of a world living in harmony with nature and a world where “by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”.
Most plausible climate projections now have temperatures rising above 1.5 degrees, with carbon dioxide removal techniques operating to bring this temporary overshoot back down again. The problem is that we do not currently have carbon dioxide removal technologies at the scale needed to bring temperatures down if we overshoot 1.5 degrees. There are some natural solutions to carbon dioxide removals, with tree planting one of the most widely proposed. However, tree planting can only do so much to resolve this problem, particularly if it is carried out in naturally tree-less ecosystems where it could harm existing biodiversity and destroy habitats for wildlife.
Rapid reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are needed more than ever, not just to protect us from global warming, but also to reduce pressures on land use. We cannot rely on nature to get us out of a temperature overshoot, particularly as ecosystems may suffer long-term harm during the overshoot period which could be impossible to reverse, even if temperatures later decrease. There is no plausible substitute for rapid and sustained global reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.
Those who are least responsible for climate change will suffer the most from its effects. The climate and biodiversity Cops will also discuss progress towards financing of climate and biodiversity actions. The alignment of biodiversity and climate finance would enable win-win solutions to be more easily implemented and risky projects to be avoided.
If we are serious about solving the climate and biodiversity crises, and not just swapping one problem for another, we need global mechanisms that take seriously the opportunities for joint solutions. It remains to be seen if these two important months for climate and biodiversity progress will involve us copping on, or copping out of integrated action.
Prof Yvonne Buckley is a zoologist based in Trinity College Dublin and co-director of the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water
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