The experts’ assessment is clear: humans pose a major threat to Earth’s lands, oceans, and all the living things they harbor, including us.
The COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, enters its second week on Monday, assessing progress toward achieving 23 targets agreed to two years ago in Canada to halt and reverse nature destruction by 2030. Progress will be made.
Science in numbers:
2/3 of the oceans were destroyed
According to IPBES, the intergovernmental science and policy body on biodiversity, three-quarters of the Earth’s surface has already been significantly altered and two-thirds of the oceans have been lost due to mankind’s overconsumption.
Globally, more than a third of inland wetlands declined from 1970 to 2015 – a rate three times that of forest loss.
According to the latest IPBES report, “Land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people.”
But it highlights that not all is lost, and the benefits of restoration will outweigh the costs by 10 times.
One of the 23 targets of the so-called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is to bring 30 percent of degraded lands, inland waters, marine and coastal ecosystems under “effective restoration” by 2030.
One million species are in danger
More than a quarter of the plants and animals included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species are at risk of extinction.
According to IPBES, approximately one million species are at risk.
Pollinators, which are essential for plant reproduction and three-quarters of the crops that feed humanity, are at the forefront and are rapidly being depleted.
Corals – on which approximately 850 million people depend for food and labor – are another notable example.
These animals, whose rocks provide food and spawning grounds for many creatures, could disappear in a world that warms 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels.
The world is seeking to limit Earth’s temperature rise from exceeding average limits under the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb Earth-warming greenhouse gases.
five horsemen of the apocalypse
For the United Nations, there are five causes of the biodiversity crisis, all human-induced and nicknamed the “Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
They are habitat destruction (for agriculture or human infrastructure), overexploitation of resources such as water, climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species.
Experts say climate change is likely to become the main driver of biodiversity destruction by 2050.
half of gdp
According to auditing giant PwC, more than half (55%) of the world’s GDP, about $58 trillion, depends “heavily or moderately” on nature and its services.
Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, food and beverage industries and construction are the sectors most affected by nature loss.
Pollination services, safe water and disease control are other, incalculable, benefits derived from nature.
Indian economist Pawan Sukhdev, who led a research project called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), estimated that biodiversity loss could be between 1.35 trillion and 3.1 trillion euros ($1.75 trillion and $4 trillion) per year. Happens between.
$2.6 billion subsidy
A September report by Earth Track Monitor said environmentally harmful subsidies to industries were worth at least $2.6 trillion, equivalent to 2.5 percent of global GDP.
This dwarfs the Kunming-Montreal Framework’s goal of mobilizing $200 billion per year by 2030 for nature conservation.
Harmful industries that benefit from subsidies include fishing, agriculture, and fossil fuel producers.
Another goal of the biodiversity framework is to reduce harmful subsidies and tax benefits by “at least $500 billion per year” by 2030.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
