Why we won’t be able to prevent climate breakdown without changing our relationship to the rest of the living world

Global Warming and Biodiversity Erosion: The Dual Challenge of Climate Change

Because of its growing impact on society, global warming has taken centre stage in the public debate. While most of us have not read the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), heat waves, intensifying storms and the multiplication of extreme events remind us of the scale of climate disruption and the urgency of action.

Despite being documented by the Intergovernmental Sciences Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the equivalent of the IPCC for biodiversity, we know little about how biodiversity erosion might affect us and the rest of the planet. Its links and interactions with climate change are underestimated, and any policy to address either in isolation will miss the mark. It’s impossible to take effective action against global warming without addressing our impact on the rest of the living world, and vice versa.

Fossil carbon, living carbon

IPCC scientists have been explaining since their first assessment report (1990) that climate change is a stock problem. To halt global warming, it is not enough to slash greenhouse gas emissions. We need to stabilise their stock in the atmosphere. To achieve reach net zero we must reduce emissions – the inflow into the stock – to the level of the outflow, which is made up of CO₂ absorption by carbon sinks (forests and oceans) and the elimination of non-CO₂ greenhouse gases at the end of their life cycle.

This requires that we adopt a two-pronged plan, aimed both at cutting down our reliance on both fossil and living carbon. The former feeds the vast majority of the world’s pollution, with coal, oil and natural gas accounting for 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Tackling it will require that we take on the so-called energy transition.

On the other hand, a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions come from “living carbon”, mainly as a result of specific agricultural emissions (unrelated to fossil fuel use) and tropical deforestation and other land use changes that erode carbon sinks. There is no way to achieve carbon neutrality without a profound transformation in the use of living resources, to ensure the reflux of agricultural emissions and better protection of carbon sinks. This is the challenge of what we might call the agroclimatic transition.

One of the major difficulties of the ecological transition is to carry out these two transformations simultaneously, as they involve distinct economic mechanisms. For fossil carbon, we need to introduce scarcity by reducing the use of coal, oil and natural gas to the absolute minimum. For living carbon, we need to reinvest in the diversity of ecosystems to reduce agricultural emissions and protect carbon sinks as part of a bioeconomy.

From adding to subtracting

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, energy transitions have followed one another. They have all involved adding new energy sources to a system initially based on the use of biomass. The result has been a massive increase in the amount of energy used worldwide.

The climate is forcing us to break with this logic. Lowering emissions is not a matter of adding decarbonised sources to the energy system. It’s about removing fossil fuels. We need to switch from a logic of addition to one of subtraction.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. SDGs Addressed or Connected to the Issues

   • SDG 13: Climate Action
   • SDG 15: Life on Land

2. Specific Targets Based on the Article’s Content

   • SDG 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning
   • SDG 15.1: Ensure the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems
   • SDG 15.2: Promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests
   • SDG 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce degradation of natural habitats
   • SDG 15.9: By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies, and accounts

3. Indicators Mentioned or Implied in the Article

   • CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels
   • CO₂ absorption by carbon sinks (forests and oceans)
   • Emission trading schemes
   • Carbon pricing
   • Fossil fuel subsidies
   • Forest management methods
   • Tropical deforestation
   • Agricultural emissions
   • Food consumption patterns
   • Marine biodiversity

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

SDGs	Targets	Indicators
SDG 13: Climate Action	13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning	– CO2 emissions from fossil fuels – CO2 absorption by carbon sinks (forests and oceans) – Emission trading schemes – Carbon pricing – Fossil fuel subsidies
SDG 15: Life on Land	15.1: Ensure the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems	– Forest management methods – Tropical deforestation
	15.2: Promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests	– Forest management methods – Tropical deforestation
	15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce degradation of natural habitats	– Forest management methods – Tropical deforestation
	15.9: By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies, and accounts	– Forest management methods – Tropical deforestation

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Source: theconversation.com

 

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