UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

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UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

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AFP - Monday 29 April 2019 - 9:30am

FRANCE - Diplomats from 130 nations gather in Paris from Monday to validate a grim UN assessment of the state of Nature and lay the groundwork for an 11th-hour rescue plan for life on Earth.

A 44-page, draft "Summary for Policy Makers" obtained by AFP catalogues the 1001 ways in which our species has plundered the planet and damaged its capacity to renew the resources upon which we depend, starting with breathable air, drinkable water and productive soil.

The impact of humanity's expanding footprint and appetites has been devastating.

Up to a million species face extinction, many within decades, according to the report, and three-quarters of Earth's land surface has been "severely altered".

A third of ocean fish stocks are in decline, and the rest, barring a few, are harvested at the very edge of sustainability.

A dramatic die-off of pollinating insects, especially bees, threatens essential crops valued at half-a-trillion dollars annually.

Twenty 10-year targets adopted in 2010 under the United Nation's biodiversity treaty -- to expand protected areas, slow species and forest loss, and reduce pollution -- will, with one or two exceptions, fail badly.

Based on an underlying report that draws from 400 experts and weighs in at 1,800 pages, the executive summary has to be vetted line-by-line by diplomats, with scientists at their elbow.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) document, once approved, will be released on May 6.

Historically, conservation biology has focused on the plight of pandas, polar bears and a multitude of less "charismatic" animals and plants that humanity is harvesting, eating, crowding or poisoning into oblivion.

But in the last two decades, that focus has shifted back to us.

"Up to now, we have talked about the importance of biodiversity mostly from an environmental perspective," Robert Watson, chairman of the UN-mandated body that compiled the report, told AFP.

- Agriculture is key -

"Now we are saying that Nature is crucial for food production, for pure water, for medicines and even social cohesion."

And to fight climate change.

Forests and oceans, for example, soak up half of the planet-warming greenhouse gases we spew into the atmosphere.

If they didn't, Earth might already be locked into an unliveable future of runaway global warming.

And yet, an area of tropical forest five times the size of England has been destroyed since 2014, mainly to service the global demand for beef, biofuels, soy beans and palm oil.

"The recent IPCC report shows to what extent climate change threatens biodiversity," said Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a main architect of the Paris Agreement, referring to the UN's climate science panel.

"And the upcoming IPBES report -- as important for humanity -- will show these two problems have overlapping solutions."

- Extinctions hard to see -

That overlap, she added, begins with agriculture, which accounts for at least a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

Set up in 2012, the IPBES synthesises published science for policymakers in the same way the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) does on climate.

Both advisory bodies feed into UN treaties.

But the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has always been a poor stepchild compared to its climate counterpart, and the IPBES was added as an afterthought, making its authority harder to establish.

Biodiversity experts are trying to engineer a "Paris moment" for Nature akin to the 2015 Paris climate treaty.

Public concern about global warming has crystallised around impacts ranging from rising seas to deadly heatwaves, and the Paris pact's hard target for capping the rise in global temperatures.

The 2018 IPCC report cited by Tubiana added a time imperative: to hold the line at 1.5 degrees Celsius, the world must reduce CO2 emissions 45 percent by 2030, and become "carbon neutral" by mid-century, it concluded.

But finding the equivalent for Nature has proven difficult.

"Extinctions are not something the public can easily see," said Watson.

A growing number of scientists and NGOs are calling for 30 to 50 percent of Earth's surface to be "sustainably managed" by 2030, and more thereafter.

But the draft report makes no such concrete proposals.

The next opportunity for a visionary plan to be ratified would be the next full meeting in October 2020 of the parties to the Convention on Biodiversity in Kunming, China.

Source
AFP

https://www.enca.com/life/un-report-hig ... escue-plan


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Re: UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

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This is very worrisome.We all already know that, but nobody takes action. Nature will never get priority before money.

The actions proposed (reduce gas emission and pollution, better manage protected areas, preserve habitat...) are good, but one essential element is lacking and nobody dares pointing at it : the growth of the human population.

How could we reduce our emission if 5 billions more people are living on Earth by 2100, all wishing to live as Westerners, even if we develop renewable energy ? How could we preserve wild areas if much more agricultural land is needed to feed all that people ?

All these action plans need to have as priority the reduction of the human natality, otherwise they will be pointless (but the concern of our governments is only "who will pay for our pension?" "how will we ensure economic growth with less people?" no matter in which environment we live) ...


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Re: UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

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All true Dindingwe!! :-(


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Re: UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

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Unfortunately, the forecasts are very bad. We are getting too old, there are no dangerous global pandemics and no world wars or atomic bombs, so the world population can only grow until finally one of the above will hit the Earth and kill some millions or better billions.


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Re: UN report to highlight urgent need for nature rescue plan

Post by Richprins »

Very good summary, Dingwe. I can only think that it will be a very close race before most populations catch up to the Western/consumerist model of low population growth. O-/

And I suspect there will be some sort of calamity, probably disease-related or genetic, too.


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