Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

The climate change and biodiversity loss crises require an ambitious, coordinated response. Addressing them separately—as has largely been the case to date—risks compromising the world’s ability to successfully halt climate change while preserving ecosystems and meeting other sustainable development goals. The recent high-level focus on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) at the UN Climate Summit shows growing awareness that ecosystems conservation is a win-win-win solution for climate adaptation, mitigation and biodiversity. The Paris Agreement’s 2050 carbon neutrality goal, and the recent Beijing Call for Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Change also evidence an emerging convergence between the two issues in the international political agenda.
Yet still lacking are open discussions on the specifics of what a coordinated ambitious response to climate change and biodiversity loss would actually look like, especially given the severely negative biodiversity impacts of some climate mitigation ‘solutions’ when deployed at a large scale.
This Study argues for the need to integrate biodiversity into ambitious climate action. This requires paying close attention to how the 1.5°C goal is reached, as some 1.5°C emission reductions pathways can be compatible with biodiversity protection, while others—namely those relying on widespread carbon-dioxide removal (CDR) deployment, through the use of widespread BECCS or afforestation— are set to severely negatively impact biodiversity. This paper primarily focuses on the climate-biodiversity nexus on land, but its main conclusions could also apply to the ocean.