Launch of IPBES-IPCC Co-Sponsored Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Climate Change

three minutes from now we're just waiting for all of the attendees to join so please be patient we will start in about three minutes i'd like to welcome all of our youtube live stream viewers uh who are now live as well we are going to get going with the launch in about two minutes so if you could please uh just bear with us we'll get going on the hour in about two minutes good day everybody and a very warm welcome to everybody joining this virtual media conference from whichever part of the world you may be connecting we're especially pleased to welcome so many members of the global media but also of course our non-media viewers joining us on the youtube live stream as well uh just to mention for those of you who are social media users you can post about this launch on social media using the hashtag hashtag biodiversity climate science so today we're going to be launching the landmark ipis ipcc co-sponsored workshop report on biodiversity and climate change my name is rob spall and i lead communications for ipus the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services before we begin i'd like please to confirm for you that the media embargo has been lifted you will find the media release the workshop report and the scientific outcome all on our website at www.ipbus.net forward slash biodiversity climate science that's all one word with no spaces biodiversity climate science so i'd like to start today by sharing with you a quote from our friend and colleague the late professor bob scholz who once said and i quote as biodiversity conservationists we've been talking to ourselves for far too long as a result the loss of nature has been seen as a problem that's far away being dealt with by other people but to win the battle to make the world a sustainable place the main place we have to work is in the lived landscape where ordinary people exist that means it's everyone's responsibility and everyone has a role in ensuring we have a sustainable future end quote the report we're launching today is the result of a four-day virtual workshop that was held in december but also five months of intense work that has followed since then a global collaboration between not only 50 of the world's leading experts on biodiversity and climate change and our 25 expert peer reviewers but also between ipes and the ipcc which is the first time our two intergovernmental platforms have collaborated on science policy at this level our program today is quite straightforward we'll begin with a few remarks from dr anne laragodri the executive secretary of ipus we'll then hear a short presentation about the main messages of the report from professor hans otto portner the co-chair of the scientific steering committee of the workshop and also co-chair of working group 2 of the ipcc following hunts's presentation there'll be a brief video response from sveinung rotavarten the norwegian minister for climate and environment and then we will open up the floor for media questions joining peter sorry joining hans and anne on our panel uh today for questions on most of the section leads from the report i'm just going through that list pretty quickly dr mahesh sankaran professor wolfgang kiesling dr david abura professor almut professor paul ledley dr yun shin professor guy midgley professor sarah diamond professor pamela makovi professor sukul managi and we're also joined by one of the non-section leads professor unai pascual as well on the call so i would also like to take this opportunity to recognize all of the workshop participants who are not on the panel today and with that it is my pleasure to invite dr anne lahrdry the executive secretary of ipus to make a few opening remarks and the floor is yours thank you very much rob and greetings to all media representatives around the world before we begin i wanted to take a minute to recall that our report has been dedicated to uh the memory of our good colleague and friend professor bob scholes from south africa bob was together with hans auto partner the co-chair of this workshop he collected the production of the report and he very sadly passed away just a few weeks ago he himself uh contributed in a very significant manner to both uh ibis and ipcc and as reflected in his words that rob just shared with us he really truly embodied uh this spirit of collaboration between our two organizations he's of course with us uh today in our thoughts as we launched uh this report to which he really so strongly uh contributed so a few words about events and ipcc as you will recall both cbs and ipcc are inter-governmental science policy processes their members are governments and their mission is to strengthen the science policy uh interface in particular through uh the production of scientific assessment uh reports focusing on one hand on biodiversity and natural nature's contribution to people when it comes to ebay and focusing on climate taken in a very broad sense when it comes to ipcc so the overall context uh for uh the workshop well first of all we are all aware uh that the world is experiencing a number of environmental crisis two of the most prominent ones uh being the loss of biodiversity and nature's contribution to people and climate change the report explains why there is an urgency to address both of these topics uh together as of now and there is also an important and international context of course with this year two important meetings taking place the cup or conference of the parties of the convention on biological diversity cop 15 on one hand and the cup 26 of the climate change convention on the other hand both uh in principle taking place this year this year and both expected to address these issues so finally a little bit about the process itself concerning the workshop so uh originally the ebay plenary which uh took place a couple of years ago if the seven in paris uh asked the best uh secretariat to explore with uh the ipcc secretary of sports possible joint activities regarding the interactions between biodiversity and climate change to be carried out together by the two bodies and it was decided to start this collaboration with what in our jargon we called a co-sponsored workshop so 50 experts were selected half from ebay half from ipcc people who had been involved before in the production of their respective assessment a report they are from all regions of the world they met virtually in december 2020 the meeting was originally planned uh in london in the uk the workshop was virtually hosted by the uk with support from norway the report was subject to several internal reviews as well as an external peer review and as you have seen two documents are being released a short workshop report with a synopsis which contains the key messages from the workshop as well as a longer scientific outcome which provides the scientific basis for these key messages including seven sections about 1500 scientific references and a glossary one important point is that this is a report it is not an assessment and a key difference here is that this workshop report has not been endorsed or approved by uh governments this reports from forms a contribution to a new assessment which uh the e-best eight plenary starting monday uh is expected to initiate on the interactions between biodiversity food water and health in the context of climate change we refer to it as the nexus assessment and it is also expected to feed into the ipcc six assessment report and synthesis reports so with this uh opening background information i thank you for your attention and i hand back over to you rob thank you very much and i can see we're starting to receive some questions already from our media colleagues um so let me take a moment please to explain how the question session is going to work um first because this is a media launch we will focus on questions from the media specifically to our media colleagues please post your questions in the q a box only please do not post your questions in the chat box and please do start your question by indicating which media organization you're with and do please feel free to start posting questions already we will get to these a little later in the program i'm very pleased now to invite professor hans otto pertner the co-chair of the scientific steering committee of the workshop and also co-chair of working group 2 of the ipcc to share with us some of the main messages from the workshop report hunts the floor is yours thank you very much rob and i hope you can all hear me and hello to everyone we're a very warm welcome also from my side my name is hans bertner i'm co-chair of ibcc working group 2 and i have been co-chaired together with bob scholz of this ips and ipcc co-sponsored workshop and its report it is my pleasure to provide a short overview of our key findings this report deals with three intertwined systems the changing climate system the changing biosphere where we currently see accelerating loss of biodiversity and the human society which is going through its own inherent crises such as the current pandemics and associated challenges climate change and biodiversity loss are threatening human well-being as well as society they are closely interconnected and share common drivers through human activities they are reinforcing each other and are intertwined through mechanistic links and feedbacks nature currently absorbs more than 50 percent of anthropogenic co2 emissions already through carbon storage in biomass and organic material as well as through co2 dissolution in ocean water relevant parts of this service are provided by the underpinning biodiversity but biodiversity is at risk from ecosystem degradation resulting from human activities including human induced climate change ecosystem degradation in fact enhances greenhouse gas emissions and therefore climate change now what is already happening we are seeing multiple impacts of climate change on all continents and in all ocean regions these increasingly add to the enormous human pressure on biodiversity which is causing its progressive loss so far conservation efforts have not been sufficient to stop these developments the surface area currently subjected to ambitious conservation is simply too small to stem the loss of biodiversity on a global scale human society depends on the services that nature provides but climate changes cause loss in natural resources especially those that are overused for example through overfishing it also causes losses so excessive droughts and it causes mortalities in heat waves and in excessive wildfires not only among animals and plants but also in the human population climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing issues of the anthropocene depending on the degree of climate change we are expecting dramatic climate induced changes in terrestrial and marine ecosystems the schematic on the top right of this slide indicates that impacts are related to the specialization of all species on limited temperature ranges as indicated by their thermal performance curve it reflects the ability of species to grow and last not least to store carbon this curve is dynamic as it responds to additional drivers such as acidification and hypoxia in the ocean this curve also shapes the biogeography of species many species virtually everywhere are on the move because they stay in their preferred temperature range drastic changes are projected at the low latitudes as indicated on the left hand side by the widening of the grayish belt as we move in global warming from 2 to 4 degrees celsius means and the associated drop in species which is there this concerns mostly the higher complex organisms such as animals and plants which have lower levels of heat tolerance than most of other organisms an immediate conclusion is that maintaining biodiversity and its functioning relies on phasing out emissions from the burning of fossil fuels nature's contribution to people also include carbon binding and storage by the forests of the planet thereby helping climate mitigation as the capacity of plants to bind co2 also depends on temperature the reddish color on these two globes indicates and the top one is the one for current climate that even then the optimum temperature for this process is surpassed during certain months of the year this trend is then exacerbated with further warming as we see in the bottom left the plant productivity curve that i've just added to the slide it covers productivity across latitudes it will continue productivity will continue to go down and the affected surface area where vegetation cannot keep up such performance will increase at the same time degradation processes such as of permafrost will release co2 and methane and contribute to emissions again ambitious emissions reductions are a precondition to stop these strengths and to enable the biosphere to help mitigate climate change plant life is in fact already in use to help mitigation but actions taken to mitigate climate change can have either beneficial or harmful effects on biodiversity depending on policy ignoring the inseparable nature of climate biodiversity and human quality of life will result in non-optimal solutions to either crisis for example on the left you see that planting by energy crops in monocultures and if this occurs on large shares of land is often damaging to biodiversity and may even compromise human food security conversely on the right hand side restoring natural ecosystems such as mangroves sea grass meadows forests peatlands grasslands and savannas enhances carbon storage and benefits biodiversity and people biodiversity assists people and ecosystems to adapt to climate change actions that halt slow or reverse biodiversity loss can also help mitigate climate change to support intact and fully functional habitats under climate change and halt biodiversity loss on average 30 to 50 percent of the world's ocean and land should be subject to effective conservation it should be emphasized that ideal areas likely vary spatially among biomes and with local contexts but are substantially larger than at present previous policies have largely tackled the problems of climate change and biodiversity loss independently however treating climate biodiversity and human society as coupled systems is key to successful outcomes effective conservation and climate actions would go in hand would go hand in hand across landscapes in cities as well as in rural areas if these actions also take people's needs into account benefits and outcomes for climate and biodiversity protections as well as humans can be maximized a network and a mosaic of protected areas results as indicated here on this slide where species can migrate with climate change and populations remain connected this approach considers all ecosystem types and also connects protected spaces and those where human uses are possible nature is offering solutions which can be effective if paralleled by strong reductions of emissions in all sectors of human society however these actions can influence each other mostly positively as indicated by the blues lines but sometimes also negatively as indicated by the orange lines this applies to climate actions as well as to actions for biodiversity conservation the density of orange lines is higher for actions narrowly focused on climate actions indicating a higher risk of trade-offs many of the solutions are still in the ideation phase or have not yet yet been deployed at any sizable scale the lesson from this analysis is that pathways for sustainable development exist that can successfully navigate through the multiple crises we face as time is getting short to reach sustainability for all systems concerned the transformative change relies on rapid and far-reaching actions of a type never before attempted when treating climate biodiversity and human society as coupled systems the benefits and outcomes for climate stabilization biodiversity conservation as well as humans can be maximized in terms of resilience and risk reduction pathways and their implementation rely on effective transformative governance as shown on the right enabling capacity building cooperation across sectors inclusive decision making and strong environmental law and policy to summarize we are learning from this and from earlier reports that it is urgent successful implementation depends on rapid entry into action this includes ambitious emissions reductions from fossil fuels restoring a resilient biosphere and biodiversity addressing justice and equality eradicating poverty and overall every bit of warming matters every lost species and degraded ecosystem matters and with that i wish to thank you for your attention and also thanking bob who has been with us for most of the time when we prepared this report thanks a lot and thank you very much hans for the presentation and for sharing those messages with us um and again our sincere thanks to you and to all of the participants in the workshop for your tremendous efforts that led to the production of this workshop report and we'll now hear a short reaction to the launch of this workshop report by sweden minister for climate and the environment you may recall that the governments of norway and the uk were the co-hosts of this workshop i am very pleased to join you all at the launch of this important and much anticipated report the world is dealing with multiple crises the climate crisis unprecedented biodiversity laws and of course covet 19. strong and urgent action is needed to address these interconnected crises i want to thank the scientists from ipbs and ipcc for your tremendous effort experts from ipcc and ipbs have on numerous occasions contributed as authors to assessment reports from both panels but from what i understand this report is the first joint report we sincerely welcome this cooperation and this important work i also want to thank the uk for co-sponsoring the workshop last december and command you for all your efforts in preparing an ambitious cop 26 in november i appreciate your leadership in the global ocean alliance which norway is a part of as individual countries and members of a global community we need to have a deeper and better understanding of the links between biodiversity and climate change based on credible and relevant knowledge this report will strengthen our ability to predict the consequences of our actions to consider the best ways forward and to understand the effects of possible trade-offs the biodiversity cup in kunming and the climate cop in glasgow represent unique opportunities to drive cohesive actions that benefit both climate and nature we stand ready to contribute to effective and ambitious outcomes from both cops stopping the loss and degradation of ecosystems rich in carbon and species both on land and in the ocean is identified in the report as a priority action tropical forests are essential in the battle against climate change and to preserve global biodiversity without our forests we risk undermining our food and water supply there is in short no sustainable future without protecting and preserving tropical forests this is why the recently launched leaf coalition is a massive step forward both for our climate and our biodiversity the leaf coalition ensures that ambitious tropical forest countries that reduce their deforestation rates get access to financing that we need more intact and effectively protected areas is another priority from the report therefore 2021 will be an important year both battling some of the most pressing global environmental issues of our time and reaching new agreements the world needs all countries to step up their ambitions saving both climate and the environment as this report makes very clear solutions helping both the climate and nature will be in high demand and it is my hope that this report will serve as an inspiration again thank you very much for all your hard work and for the report and thank you very much for listening i'd like to thank minister svanun rotovaten the norwegian minister for climate and environment for his message um i believe from some of our correspondents that the volume on the minister's message may not have been particularly loud um we will try and uh put the put that that message on our social media channels and also on our website um for people to view at a later point so we now come to our opportunity for the media to pose questions to our panel and to ask questions about the report as mentioned before please do post your questions as media in the q a box not in the chat box and please do start by indicating which media outlet you represent so turning to our first question which is from seth borenstein from the associated press which was asked initially specifically for one of our panelists but the panelist that perhaps is best able to answer this question i'll indicate in a moment the question is if some of the climate solutions that aren't biodiversity friendly are adopted how bad can it be for biodiversity i'm going to ask professor almut arneth to answer that question again one more time almost if some of the climate solutions that are not biodiversity friendly are adopted how bad can it be for biodiversity the floor is yours helmet thanks robin thanks for the question and um let me maybe stick to one example that was already mentioned in the few slides that hunt was presenting just before so if we continue to emit fossil co2 as we're doing at the moment we might actually in future have to rely on very large amounts of bioenergy crops being planted together with carbon capture and storage to remove co2 from the atmosphere at large scale and some of the scenarios we can envisage potentially speaks of millions of hectares of bioenergy crops we're sort of talking sometimes of land areas that would be equivalent to two times the entire land area of the indian subcontinent on the other hand we are already now using much more than 50 of the land for our food and timber production so as you can imagine planting those additional large fire energy crop areas will put enormous pressure on existing natural lands to destroy them which would be fairly catastrophic for biodiversity but actually there would possibly also be quite detrimental effect food security as well so that is sort of one example that really that we really should better decarbonize our societies and reduce emissions thank you thank you very much for that answer all that much appreciated um ladies and gentlemen i'd ask again please do not post questions in the chat box we won't be able to get them face post them in the q a box our next question is from zoya tearstein from grist who asks is this finding that climate policies can have negative impacts on biodiversity but policies to encourage biodiversity are beneficial or neutral in combating climate change is that new so i'm going to ask professor paul ledley if he can take that question one more time paul zoyer asks is the finding that climate policies can have negative impacts on biodiversity but policies to encourage biodiversity are beneficial or neutral in combating climate change is that new over to you paul so i think the answer to that is none of the individual pieces are new and actually that our job is to synthesize the information that's already available out in the scientific literature what's new is to bring this all together in one coherent package so that people can understand that double message and the second thing is that a lot of this understanding is a evolving fairly fairly rapidly and so we've tried to put this in a in a way that um both the public and and decision makers can understand the current thinking about the relationships between biodiversity and and climate change um and i think the the last point is a really important point and that is that uh although some of the uh impacts of climate change mitigation on biodiversity have been relatively well studied in the uh and discussed in the in the literature there are lots of different things that are being done for climate change especially around adaptation and many of those things can also potentially be a bit negative for biodiversity and there's a real risk that biodiversity is going to be lost die from a thousand cuts and we really had to put the that up front as a message that there's just lots of things that are going on out there in terms of climate change many of which could be good for biodiversity but many of which also could be bad for biodiversity so the real important point of this uh this report is to bring all of that information together uh so that there's a a coherent understanding of those interactions and that's new great thank you very much paul much appreciated our next question is a question for hunts um and it comes from tetsuji ida from kyoto news tetsuji asks hunts now we are witnessing a vicious cycle of climate change and biodiversity loss how can we reverse the direction of this wheel and achieve transformative change in a limited amount of time in other words who can be the game changer what is the leverage to make transformative change against this inertia so hans question to you would you like me to repeat it or is it is it clear i i think it is rather clear thanks a lot rob and that's certainly a core a core question to be addressed the special report on 1.5 by the ipcc has has identified that actually policy will end in it in the background societal will is key and is a key bottleneck in in terms of implementing these solutions we have emphasized in in this uh report that cutting emissions and and bringing them down in line with scenarios uh for the keeping to the various climate uh limits is a key precondition for everything um to to follow and be developed in in parallel as well and the biodiversity strength the strengthening of biodiversity and ecosystems to recover from the human challenges and and be ready to help climate uh mitigation is i think another parallel uh a string of action that needs to be implemented so policy turning around and and being convinced and and taking ambitious um action uh not compromising on what we know from from science i think is a is a key uh key precondition uh for for this to take up up speed and uh as the g7 is currently unfolding um and leaders are discussing i think they should make that a topic of their discussions thank you very much hans we turn now to a question from khaled suleiman from dharaj media the middle east and north africa region is the most affected area by drought and climate change i would like to know if recent reports cover biodiversity loss in this region due to climate change and what is the scientific perspective to reduce the estimated impacts on human life i wonder if i could ask professor guy midgley to field this question for us guy do you need me to repeat the question no i've got it thanks uh thanks thanks for the question um maybe first i can say that uh we didn't in this report do comprehensive analyses at regional levels and uh the better place to look for that sort of information would be the upcoming ipcc six assessment report but what i can say is that um it looks as though a lot of the really adverse effects on human populations in that part of the world occur through the groundwater system and there is quite a lot of work uh on impacts of climate change on the groundwater system and interactions with human use of the groundwater system so that uh i i would suggest is one of the most important interactions to be looking for there thank you thanks very much guy appreciate the answer our next question comes from suzanna ellading from target spiegel who asks um and i'm going to ask this question to professor unai pascual could the speakers please elaborate on the relationship between climate change and biodiversity loss on the one side and justice and equality on the other side who and i over to you thank you rob thanks for the question so basically the report highlights uh the idea of uh equity and justice as one of the levers to to be able to manage the joint climate and biodiversity crisis for various reasons one is that we know and there's plenty of evidence that relatively speaking the main impacts on people will be born by the most vulnerable societies usually marginalized societies and here we can include different communities one of them being indigenous people around the world especially those who have been stewards of nature but there are all other angles to understanding the connection between equity and the climate and diversity crisis one of them being that it is very important for different voices different values to be heard and respected uh to try to put together a successful options and solutions which will be in some way context specific because there's no magical solutions that will work everywhere in the world so respecting and bringing to the table uh those different voices is something that uh is at the core of of uh the idea of equity a social equity and justice so i think those would be two main main points perhaps the last one is just to to realize i think the report highlights this in various places that any policy intervention to try to solve the price this coupled environmental crisis will have winners and losers so even in the solution space uh there will be situations where uh those who will lose out from certain interventions will need to be compensated from those who will reap the benefits and this is another another part of the of the idea of the distribution of the benefits and burdens that may arise from from any type of intervention thank you very much and i appreciate the answer our next question comes from reuters and i'm going to pose this question to professor pamela makovi um pam this is from kanopriya kapoor from reuters who asks the synopsis and the speakers mentioned some conservation efforts which so far have been insufficient what do you think contributed to biodiversity being left behind so to say from the global agenda and what needs to be done to change this and the floor is yours yeah that's a great question i mean i think to some degree part of the answer is what our other speakers have emphasized which is for far too long we've tended to see climate and biodiversity as separate issues and so our policy responses have often been very siloed it's very common for example for ministries of environment to deal with climate and then ministries of agriculture or natural resources to deal with biodiversity so that institutional siloing um has often meant that we treat these separately and climate has simply gotten more attention part of the reason i think climate has gotten more attention is that people are increasingly feeling it in their own lives whether it's wildfires in australia whether it is increasing hurricane risks in the pacific and so that sort of visibility of climate impacts in people's lives i think has really heightened awareness of climate change and our report points out though is that biodiversity has that similar effect on human well-being if we lose mangroves in coastal areas that has a knock-on effect to human welfare it might result in a decline of fisheries that people depend on it might increase flood risk for homeowners who live in coastal areas who might not have the protection of nature if that nature has been uh degraded and so really making sure that people understand those connections to human well-being to helping us eliminate poverty all of these are related to both biodiversity and to climate and i think as that realization increases we will see increasing attention to that need to include biodiversity in our climate solutions thank you very much pam our next question is going to be posed to professor pete smith pete this is a question from martha enrique from from the bbc who asks which solutions or interventions do you see as the most promising for both biodiversity and climate heat the floor is yours yeah well luckily there are a number of interventions that we can make that are beneficial for both climate change and biodiversity those mostly rely on protecting our existing high carbon ecosystems because we want to keep that carbon in those ecosystems so i'm thinking of peatlands and forests in particular so protecting those areas those pristine environments will be one thing that we could do that's good for both the climate and biodiversity and also also restoring degraded ecosystems so peatland restoration is a great example degraded peat lens can be emitting um tens of tons of co2 per hectare per year many more times than a than a than a family car emits in a year so by restoring those ecosystems uh to their former glory we can both uh benefit the climate and we can protect biodiversity and we've also got options on our managed land to um manage them in a more sustainable and biodiversity friendly way so there's there are options in many spaces where we can do this well and there's really the way that we implement them we just have to be mindful of both the climate and biodiversity together when we implement them so that we don't get perverse solutions great thank you very much pete we now have a follow-up question from seth bernstein at ap and i'm going to pose this follow-up to professor dr yun shin yeon the question is in chart number eight what specific biodiversity solutions can worsen climate change um and i assume you'll know what chart number eight is over to you yes thank you for this question well one of the main results of the report is that from the biodiversity biodiversity side of things the bulk of the biodiversity measures are positive or contributing to climate change regulation climate change mitigation and adaptation that is something which is very important and also one second thing that should be raised here is that one must realize that climate change and biodiversity share common root causes human population growth our mods of production and consumption of government systems our economies technology development in our value system so there's a huge opportunity here by mobilizing our energy and finances our individual choices by transforming our systems we can kill two birds with one stone so we can be efficient with high benefits to cost outcomes having said that there are specific nature based solutions that pismith evoked earlier so we can there are a number of actions to protect sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems and these include reducing deforestation and degradation forests mangroves don't forget the coastal marine vegetating habitats minecraft hugely important contributors to climate regulation they can sequester four times more carbon than tropical forests per area for unique area so that being said what is true is that nato-based solutions even though they contribute largely to climate change mitigation they can't be they can't do everything nato can't solve all the climate change issues so it must be clearly accompanied by clear cuts in greenhouse gas emissions thank you very much john our next question is from zafria renat from haaretz newspaper in israel um i'm going to pose this question back to professor paul ledley paul the question is can we predict approximately when ecological thresholds will be crossed at regional scales and prepare actions to mitigate or reverse climate effects in a timely way paul so uh the answer is yes and no so for some of the key tipping points so for example the bleaching of coral reefs uh which is we're beginning to see at very large scales right now or the degradation of permafrost in arctic tundra which we're also seeing happen already due to climate change those are tipping points where we know fairly well what's causing them and uh we've been pretty good at predicting that they would occur and that had occurred and we think we know that essentially where some of the key tipping points are but i think an important message about tipping points uh is that we don't know when most tipping points will occur at regional scales and that's for two reasons one is that at regional scales uh climate's very difficult to to predict uh into the future especially precipitation patterns and the second thing is that we don't know how ecosystems react in many cases especially in interactions with with with people and so some tipping points yes many tipping points we really don't know and so that's why we shouldn't even get close to where they might tip thank you very much paul another question this time for professor almod arnott again from marina eisen from amphibia magazine in argentina marina asks should governments rethink their agricultural policies in light of this report olmert yeah that's an important aspect and let's keep in mind for instance that roundabout roughly three quarters of total greenhouse gas emissions and co2 equivalents are actually related to agricultural systems so obviously we can do a lot here in reducing emissions as we're talking about and also agriculture intensive agriculture in particular is of course a major drive of biodiversity loss so there are actually many agricultural measures sort of you know under the umbrella of sustainable agriculture that could be implemented and that would actually target both improving biodiversity as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions that could range from agricultural practices that are restoring degraded agricultural soils and building up much more carbon in our agricultural soil therefore storing co2 from the atmosphere as well as improving fertility of soils it could also be agricultural policies that in the end lead to less use of pesticides which are detrimental by biodiversity this is just a couple of examples but yes agricultural policies are probably one of the very very important levers governments do actually have in order to really create win-win both from a climate change perspective and from a biodiversity perspective thank you very much arnold the question now for anne larragadry the executive secretary of hypnus um this is from niren from liberacion in france and it's a question about the goal of the organizations in terms of publishing this report whether the goal is to educate and inform the population uh or is it in some way to place pressure on decision makers um perhaps also in private companies and in government and then a second part of this question and will there be follow-up presentations and workshops um with governments and decision makers following this report and the floor is yours thank you so um in in general terms uh the the purpose of ebay and of ipcc is to really strengthen the science policy interface which means to provide uh the status of knowledge regarding biodiversity and climate change to inform a diversity of actors of course we respond to requests from governments first and foremost but our reports are also targeted at a diversity of actors such as aside from governments well within governments we try to target options for actions uh within different sectors of governments but we also uh speak to non-governmental organizations uh there are also actions targeted at cities or communities indigenous peoples and local communities are very important particularly for the work of ibes so there is really a a major emphasis on uh providing uh scientific information in a way that is palatable to a large diversity of actors since uh as when i mentioned the actions are going to have to be declined at many different levels and involved many different types of people on the ground thank you anne before you go i'm going to actually do another quick question to you because i believe i may have made a bit of an error i think the question from zafriah renat from haaretz newspaper in israel was actually this one do you feel that biodiversity conservation is not getting enough attention because of the current public and scientific focus on climate change and well perhaps what we want to emphasize here is uh how relevant uh biodiversity conservation is for uh climate change uh mitigation so a biodiversity convention has been receiving a little bit of interest but not enough particularly in the context of addressing many other types of uh very current issues i'm thinking about the emergence of diseases for example and pandemics we've seen uh the role of better understanding the origin of diseases and this is a typically a biodiversity issue and now also within the context of climate change uh there is more emphasis that is necessary to protect uh ecosystems and to restore them in order to really make nature a work force in solving some of our most acute issues thank you very much anne a question now from sao paulo in brazil and this is from herton escobar i'm going to ask dr david obura to answer this question david how do you see the current trends of tropical forest loss around the world and particularly the brazilian amazon considering its effects on both biodiversity and climate and then a second question considering the somewhat disappointing results of the aichi biodiversity targets how do you expect this report can motivate policymakers to take decisive action now especially as regards creating protected areas on land and in the ocean david thank you rob um so for the first part of the question i'll just answer that briefly as i'm a marine biologist it's not my main expertise but from the best global assessment in 2019 i mean it was a fairly clear that continued loss in tropical forest area is an ongoing problem and does need to be addressed for both biodiversity and climate solutions and i think our report does go into many of these aspects so but i don't have the particular regional knowledge but on the second question um around the he biodiversity targets we hope that this report and as many of the other panelists have already pointed out is that the he targets were probably held back because we looked at biodiversity of the world looked at biodiversity and climate as different issues as well as from food security and other global challenges whereas now there's a much greater appreciation and they're very linked and that's that's a major thrust of our report so with the two conferences of parties for biodiversity and climate happen very close together we hope that the um the recommendations that we make particularly around nature-based solutions that are good for climate good for biodiversity and good for people so have multi-functional benefits um will help a lot and lastly that's the creation of protected areas is one of the solutions uh to resolving the biodiversity crisis but not the only ones there's a lot of actions that can be taken with conserved areas and natural habitats and restoration in landscapes where people are living and working as well that are not um you know pristine uh intact areas a lot of actions that can be taken across the landscapes and seascapes to address both biodiversity and climate together thank you thank you very much david ladies and gentlemen we have a lot of questions coming in from our media colleagues we're going to try and get through as many of them as we can the next question i'm going to pose will be to professor wolfgang kiesling it's a question from graham lawton of new scientists in london um wolfgang the question is the un has identified a third planetary crisis alongside climate and biodiversity waste and pollution is this justified can we solve that problem too alongside climate and nature loss wolfgang the floor is yours thank you well this is actually part of the big problem of biodiversity pollution and waste is part of habitat destruction and this is extremely harmful to biodiversity right now habitat destruction including pollution is the main reason actually for biodiversity crisis climate change is playing in on top of this so if you will this cert um planetary crisis is currently the crisis for biodiversity and climate change will then make it even worse and that's all i have to say on that thank you very much wolfgang um we have a question which i'm going to pose to professor almod arnath again uh almut the question is from mayumi nobuta um from main chi newspapers in japan the question is there are motions in place to relax the standards of environmental assessments in order to expedite the introduction of renewable energies how can a balance be created between introducing renewables quickly and protecting biodiversity yeah that's an important one maybe just to briefly provide some background where i think that question comes from is quite a bit of renewable energy you know related to e-mobility solar panels wind panels and so forth relies on mining for resources both on land and at sea and these mines are of course very destructive to ecosystems and particularly with the deep sea floor mining which sort of you know seems to be starting at the moment there's great concern about the destruction of ecosystems that we actually don't really know yet so there's obviously a critical issue on the other hand renewable energies are of course the key aspect to get us out of part of the climate change master we really need to make sure that we're developing renewable energies in a sustainable way and that does include having sort of mining activities with the appropriate environmental measures in place but also very importantly being societally acceptable and acceptable to people who are living in mining areas so this is a very critical aspect to keep in mind thank you elmer ladies and gentlemen we had scheduled this launch to end on the hour but since there are so many media questions remaining i'm going to extend our session by 15 further minutes if you do need to leave thank you very much for joining us but in order to try and give as many of our media colleagues as possible the opportunity for their questions i am going to extend this i'm going to pose another question to dr david obura this is a question from sonia sanchez at ara newspaper in barcelona and david the question is that the next biodiversity summit which is cop 15 in china intends to reach a global agreement to ensure 30 protected areas globally according to the report this is the minimum needed if this is eventually achieved would you say it's a success for the international community and but i guess we would need a proper scientific plan to define the specific areas needed to be protected question mark how should it be implemented david yes thank you rob yes this is a very topical um question and the target around thirty percent of protected areas around the globe is arising for cop 15 of the biodiversity biodiversity summit there is a lot of scientific literature advocating for this and we certainly know that biodiversity is in decline and we're exceeding our footprint in terms of its use and impacts on it so we need to have much higher levels of protection than we have right now in sustainability a big issue with the target is that the protected areas need to be effectively managed and there are many areas that are effectively managed for biodiversity and conservation that are not inside protected areas so these can also contribute to this proportion and there's a lot of work at the moment under the label of other effective conservation measures to identify what the criteria and make sure that we're incorporating those there's also a lot of area that is under the authority of indigenous peoples and local communities that also doesn't fall under the protective category but is intact and has and has had people interacting with it and using it for centuries and millennia in some cases and so working out how to address the ethical and the um the governance issues of uh protection and conservation is a critical part of achieving this this target but we do need to achieve and it will be a success if we can achieve it by the end of this 10-year period thank you david question now from stephen leahy from the weather network which i'm going to pose to dr pamela mcelvee from professor pamela mcbee sorry pam the question is what role should the private sector play yeah our report points out that to tackle these dual crises we really need all hands on decks so that's not just governments but it's lots of different actors so as david just mentioned for example indigenous peoples play an incredibly important role in biodiversity conservation similarly the private sector has a really important role to play as well we know that the private sector for example agribusiness energy development and so forth may have a disproportionate impact on both biodiversity and climate so we need to work with the private sector to find solutions there's a lot going on in this field right now for example under climate we have uh the task force on climate-related um financial disclosures we now have a nature related task force and the the goal of these two task forces is to get the private sector to think about how loss of biodiversity or increasing temperatures under climate change actually creates risk for private sector businesses and build that risk into their decision making and that can be a really powerful tool to nudge and move the private sector to make actions that are more beneficial for biodiversity and climate um and so it's those sorts of moves that the private sector can play a really important role on thanks very much pam question now from thomas krumannaka from rift reporter in germany and which i'm going to pose to professor paul ledley paul the report strongly suggests and supports the concept of nature-based solutions do you expect the results will already advance corresponding initiatives at the upcoming cops 15 and 26 well we certainly hope it does um so clearly nature-based solutions already are part of the discussions for the global biodiversity framework and they're also part of the discussions around the climate convention what we hope it will also do is to make sure that the the discussion around that some of the things that are being sold as nature-based solutions are don't meet some of the requirements of what we call nature-based solutions and that is that they're not necessarily good for biodiversity or for for people so we also hope that our report will clearly highlight those things that truly are nature-based solutions which means they're good for nature they help solve the climate crisis and they're also good for people thanks a lot paul question again for professor pam mcelvee this time from sharon from risk magazine sharon asks how should biodiversity considerations be integrated into financial sector regulations example company accounting and markets and banking regulation how advanced is it and its partners with the official sector for financial regulation pam yeah building off my previous answer this is a really important and emerging field thinking about the risk to the private sector the risk to financial markets from potential biodiversity collapse you can imagine an agribusiness that somehow experienced the loss of pollinators that would have a financial impact on their bottom line and so there's a real need to ensure that both financial markets and private sector businesses and governments and particularly um lending that's associated with governments um all are potentially taking into account biodiversity and the decisions that they're making ipes is actually going to be playing an increasingly important role in this because there is going to be a new methodological assessment coming out in the next couple of years that looks at the different methodological ways that we can account for nature ways in which financial markets could for example price nature better and that report on business and biodiversity is just starting that'll be coming out and it'll provide a lot of clarity i think to private sector businesses and the financial markets because it's a bit of the wild west right now no one's really sure exactly how to build nature into some of their financial models and their risk models and so it bes is going to hopefully be able to provide a great sort of lay of the land and an assessment of which tools are strongest which ones work the best as i said there's a lot going on right here it buzz is going to try to provide some clarity we also have the new un system of ecological accounting which is helping countries build in natural capital into their financial accounts so there's a lot of exciting work going on right here and it's going to be a field that we need to keep our eye on going forward thanks very much i think that's a question pam gets excited about we now move to uh a question to dr yonshin yeon a question from michelle de mouliner from le soi in brussels your report warns against quote some renewable energies generating surges of mining activity end quote is this not the case with the majority of renewable energies and could you perhaps elaborate a bit on that please well yes that's the case of most renewable energy but i would say is the case of most industrial products requiring minerals and metals so it's true that there's there's a lot of mining sourcing those renewable energies installations uh wind turbines and solar panels and this has might have consequences a new um mineral deposit you say that in english at the sea bottom and and this has may have some negative environmental impacts so we can't say that it is sustainable exploitation because it's not a renewable energy source or mineral energy source but we can put some environmental limits to that impact also in the deep sea in deep sea ecosystem we need to know much more about the ecosystems in place and all the species living there are generally long-lived with a low capacity to renew the biomass but also these are very specific species which are adapted to very extreme conditions and so we need to know more about that but yes it is not the panacea of it's not the privilege of some renewable energy solutions so yeah that's all i can say for now thank you yon um ladies and gentlemen we probably have time for about three or four more questions and then i'm going to afraid i have to wrap things up um next question this time to uh professor unai pasquale from tetsujida it's a question that's follow-up from kyodo news what's the most important or effective policy to put nature-based solutions into the mainstream of decision-making is it economic measures like taxation is it approach like the task force on nature related financial disclosures unai over to you thank you robin thanks for the question well this question could be answered in different ways but clearly the question touches on something which is really important which is economic incentives at the moment it's very clear that uh some major economic incentives are gear geared towards the opposite direction towards the one we should be going to solve the climate and biodiversity crisis i'm thinking about and this is highlighted in the report about perverse subsidies that encourage the over-exploitation of natural resources or perverse subsidies that encourage the use of fossil fuels if we were able to address this issue and relocate or reallocate some of that funding in the short term towards investing in nature-based solutions we would have achieved a big deal in the short term so that's a a social kind of tipping intervention that could be put in place to fix what otherwise is known as institutional failures economic institutional failures it's not just about market failures it's also about the way institutions operate and the ways both financial and other types of institutions are promoting certain productive activities and so on so i think yes nature-based solutions could be scaled up and put in place in many parts of the world in the short term but in order to do that we also need to address uh those uh institutional failures in the first place thank you very much unai a question from elise templehof from south africa and i'm going to pose this question to ann if i may and the question is um are these findings being communicated to politicians and business industry leaders and how will you track their progress or does this report serve as a warning to them um and could i ask you to take the floor yes thank you very much so uh we do not really warn anyone but our reports this one but all of our other reports are there to inform uh people so that they then determine for themselves what is their best course of action and so that applies to uh politicians that also applies to uh industry leaders now in terms of tracking uh progress um the ebay global assessment uh tasked with reviewing uh the progress against the i.t targets of the convention on biological diversity so ebay has played uh this role to review some of the uh globally agreed goals and that may again be the case possibly uh moving forward uh in the context of the new uh post-2020 global by diversity assessment but that remains uh to be seen thank you thanks very much and elise i'm going to add one little comment from my own to that which is that ipis does a form of impact tracking um if you google it this impact tracking you will find that on our website it's not comprehensive it is indicative but the ipis impact tracking database is one way that we're trying to do that um second to last question this time i'm going to pose this to professor pete smith pete this is from pierpon from the bangkok tribune what kind of policies are urgently needed amongst policy makers to address the interplay or interconnections of climate change and biodiversity do you think it's still possible in time yes so a number of nature-based solutions are being implemented or are proposed to be implemented by a number of countries for their nationally determined contributions and it's just a matter of making sure that they co-deliver to climate change mitigation and adaptation and to biodiversity take for example uh planning a monoculture of non-native uh trees that can be very bad for biodiversity but planting native trees in a mixed woodland can be very good for biodiversity so it's not a matter of what you do it's a matter of how it's implemented so just making sure that there's good talking between those those departments that look after biodiversity and conservation and those that set the climate change targets is really the thing to do because these solutions are out there and we have to make sure they co-deliver thank you very much pete i'm going to reverse my previous decision and have two more questions this is the second to last question and i'm going to pose it to professor paul ledley this is a question from adriel magneti which is um what are the contributions to the discussion on the post 2020 global biodiversity framework paul so some of this has already been addressed already david oburo has discussed some of this um one of the things that we talked about in the report is the importance of taking climate change into account when we're setting uh uh setting up conservation and that's something that we haven't discussed uh yet and that is that we have to really rethink uh conservation and that's because species and ecosystems are going to move around a lot as climate warms and that's going to in some cases make places where we put protected areas uh no longer uh efficient in in protecting the biodiversity that they were intended to currently that discussion has not been delved into in the global biodiversity framework and that's clearly one of the things that would be very good for it to take into account um the other thing is that some of what is in our report is just going to reinforce those things that are in the global biodiversity framework and that is the global biodiversity framework puts a big emphasis on nature based solutions as contributing to climate change mitigation it also has very strong uh ecosystem restoration goals and ecosystem protection goals and what we're hoping our report will do has already been said it will reinforce the idea that those targets that are being set up in the global biodiversity framework are not just good for uh the convention on biological diversity but they're also good for the sustainable development goals they're also good uh for the climate change convention and for people in general thanks very much paul um our final question is one from roland tate i'm going to ask this question to hunts um hans the question is what is the likely impact of this report or how will this report impact the processes for cop 26 and cop 15 of the unf triple c and of the cbd yeah thanks thanks a lot rob for for this uh this question um i think what it what it will do is certainly it will connect to the two corps in in terms of uh the thinking and we in the ipcc will take this report on on board for preparing our sixth assessment report and the connection between climate and and biodiversity uh will be strengthened at both corps that is my expectation and there may be spin-offs from the biodiversity cop to to the to the climate uh cop in in in glasgow um there are already many organizations in in the green zone in involved at the climate corps in in terms of discussing the connections between climate change and biodiversity largely from the point of view of impacts but increasingly also from the point of view of nature based um solutions bringing the human um and the societal aspects into the picture and developing a more holistic approach how to yeah essentially say saving the planet for for all of us um will will be um the the next step i guess so having a holistic approach going away from the silo approach just looking at climate or biodiversity i think will be a consequence thank you so much hans um ladies and gentlemen that brings us to the end of the question and answer session for media and thank you so much to all of our panelists and to our media before we end a couple of words about media interviews if you would like to schedule a follow-up interview please send us an email to media at itbest.net with that thank you again to everyone please do remember to post about the report on this launch on social media using the hashtag biodiversity climate science this brings us to the end of our virtual media launch thank you again everybody please stay healthy and a final goodbye from all of us thank you

Channel: IPBES Secretariat

Views: 4,376

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Keywords: #biodiversityclimatescience

Id: pJZx_hYJgdQ

Length: 79min 40sec (4780 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021