Protecting species for the good of global climate
How climate can benefit from the conservation of biodiversity
Date:
April 26, 2022
Source:
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Summary:
Until now, measures to protect climate and biodiversity have
often been developed in parallel. However, this is now considered
outdated because many approaches can protect both climate and
biodiversity. Scientists have now assessed the role of the potential
future global biodiversity targets (Post-2020 Action Targets for
2030) for climate protection and found that about two thirds of
these targets can also help to slow climate change.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Until now, measures to protect climate and biodiversity have often been developed in parallel. However, this is now considered outdated because
many approaches can protect both climate and biodiversity. Targeted at the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference, an international team of scientists
has assessed the role of the potential future global biodiversity targets (Post-2020 Action Targets for 2030) for climate protection and found that
about two thirds of these targets can also help to slow climate change.
==========================================================================
When the global community is expected to meet for the second part
of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, in autumn, it
must also adopt the next generation of UN biodiversity targets. These
will then replace the Aichi Targets that were aimed for until 2020 --
and have hardly been achieved. 21 "Post-2020 Action Targets for 2030"
have already been pre-formulated. While they still have to be finally
agreed, they aim to reduce potential threats to biodiversity, improve
the well-being of humans, and implement tools and solutions for the conservation of biodiversity.
In a review study for Global Change Biology, the authors assessed
to which extent these 21 biodiversity targets can also slow climate
change. The bottom line: 14 out of 21 (i.e. two thirds) of all targets
are making a positive contribution to climate protection. "It turns
out that conservation measures that halt, slow, or reverse the loss
of biodiversity can greatly slow human- induced climate change at the
same time," says lead author Dr. Yunne-Jai Shin of the French National
Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD).
Among others, this applies to the goal of connecting protected areas
via corridors or further protected areas on at least 30% of the earth's surface.
"There is growing evidence that the creation of new protected areas
and the adequate management of existing ones on land and in the sea
help to mitigate climate change through capture and storage of carbon,"
says UFZ biodiversity researcher and co-author Prof. Josef Settele. For example, it is estimated that all terrestrial protected areas around the
globe currently store 12-16% of the total global carbon stock. And, even
though knowledge is still limited, deep- sea ecosystems can also contain important carbon stocks on the seabed (e.g. on remote islands, deep-sea mountains, and Arctic and Antarctic continental shelves). However, the
30% target is still far from being reached. According to current United
Nations figures from 2021, the coverage of protected areas on land was
15.7%, and in the sea, 7.7%.
But climate also benefits from some of the other newly formulated global biodiversity goals. For example, one goal is also to restore at least
20% of degraded ecosystems (e.g. tropical and subtropical forests)
or coastal habitats (e.g. coral reefs, sea grass beds, and mangrove
forests). According to the study, global carbon capture in coastal
systems is considerably lower than in terrestrial forests because of
their smaller size. However, the amount of carbon captured per unit of
coastal vegetation area is considerably higher.
Taking biodiversity into account in laws, directives, and spatial
planning processes also helps to protect the climate because, inter
alia, it prevents the clearing of forests, which are an important CO2 reservoir. Other goals that are positive for both biodiversity and climate protection include the expansion of green and blue infrastructures in
cities (e.g. parks, green roofs, and lakes) or better public relations
work in order to encourage the general public to deal with waste in a
more sustainable way and to consume less.
The authors have compiled 12 case studies in order to illustrate how these biodiversity goals are already being implemented in practice (e.g. in the conservation of African peat lands, the protection of mega-fauna in the Southern Ocean, or the saving of the largest mangrove forests on earth,
the Sundarbans, on the border between India and Bangladesh). However,
there may also be conflicting goals between the protection of climate
and biodiversity.
In Central Europe, the preservation of the cultural landscape is an
example that shows that not everything can be easily reconciled. On one
hand, imitating traditional land use systems instead of intensifying
or even abandoning land use has clear advantages for the conservation
of biodiversity. "These systems reduce the extinction risk of rare
species and varieties that are quite well adapted to an extensive form
of agricultural use and promote the preservation of a high diversity
of pollinators and natural enemies of pests," says UFZ researcher Josef Settele.
On the other hand, there are conflicts because some of the measures
are, in fact, harmful to climate. "Because much of the land is used for agriculture, the proportion of forest is not as high, and less carbon
is stored," he says.
In addition, the farming of cattle, sheep, and cows releases methane,
which is harmful to the climate. "There is a consensus that we must stop climate change -- but this must not be at the expense of nature. We
therefore need to find methods to slow climate change and implement
adaptation measures without losing biodiversity. This is often possible
only through compromises," says Settele.
It would therefore be positive if many of the new global
biodiversity targets of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
were implemented. Prof. Hans-Otto Po"rtner, co-author and climate
researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar
and Marine Research (AWI), adds: "The climate problem is now well
understood. However, the issue of biodiversity is treated in complete separation -- even when it comes to possible solutions. There is also
the risk that nature is discussed as a vehicle for solving the climate
problem; this is quite problematic. The capacity of ecosystems to
slow climate change is overestimated, and climate change is damaging
this capacity." Humans nevertheless believe that nature is capable of overcoming the climate crisis and enabling us to continue or prolong
the use of fossil fuels. "But it is the other way round: only when we
succeed in drastically reducing emissions from fossil fuels nature can
help us to stabilise the climate," says Po"rtner.
Last June, the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) set the record straight in a joint workshop report, where they compiled current knowledge on biodiversity and climate change, and defined and prioritised courses of action.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Helmholtz_Centre_for_Environmental_Research_-_UFZ. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yunne‐Jai Shin, Guy F. Midgley, Emma R. M. Archer, Almut
Arneth,
David K. A. Barnes, Lena Chan, Shizuka Hashimoto, Ove
Hoegh‐Guldberg, Gregory Insarov, Paul Leadley, Lisa A. Levin,
Hien T. Ngo, Ram Pandit, Aliny P. F. Pires, Hans‐Otto
Po"rtner, Alex D.
Rogers, Robert J. Scholes, Josef Settele, Pete Smith. Actions
to halt biodiversity loss generally benefit the climate. Global
Change Biology, 2022; 28 (9): 2846 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16109 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220426101723.htm
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