Addressing climate change: Why biodiversity matters KEY MESSAGES • Climate change mitigation and adaptation can be supported by biodiversity conservation actions, enabling the permanence of mitigation and adaptation efforts. • Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation undermines the supply of ecosystem services vital for mitigation and adaptation. • Adaptation and mitigation actions that do not consider the role of, and potential impacts on, biodiversity can have adverse consequences; therefore, such impacts must be assessed, and measures put in place to address them. • Application of biodiversity criteria and safeguards to climate change interventions can enhance the benefits and minimise the risks for biodiversity without jeopardising mitigation or adaptation objectives. • Multiple international agreements and national processes relevant to climate change and biodiversity should be implemented in ways that are coordinated, mutually supportive and enhance synergies. to different stresses. More diverse ecosystems are likely 1. Introduction to include species with a greater range of tolerances and sensitivities, increasing the likelihood that some species Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the will continue to contribute to ecosystem functioning greatest global threats to human well-being. An urgent under different stresses and decreasing the possibility that and coordinated response is needed to avoid catastrophic irreversible thresholds are crossed. The way ecosystems impacts on the environment and the many benefits and are managed as part of climate change mitigation and services that humans derive from it. adaptation activities can have significant impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and therefore the This policy brief describes the interconnections between long term effectiveness of these actions. climate change and biodiversity. It highlights the importance of considering biodiversity within climate change policies, programmes and projects, and presents potential opportunities for doing so. The brief has been informed by a 2.5 year research and development project on biodiversity criteria for the design, selection and evaluation of climate change adaptation and natural carbon sinks/REDD+ projects in forests and wetlands under the German International Climate Initiative (IKI)1. When developing such criteria and related safeguards for climate change policies, programmes and projects, consideration of social and environmental aspects is vital. This brief focuses on environmental issues. 2. Biodiversity, ecosystem services and their importance The term biodiversity encompasses: genetic diversity, the variability within a species; species diversity, the variety of different species; and ecosystem diversity, the variety © OroVerde - Tropical Forest Foundation of different ecosystems. Ecosystems are areas where communities of living organisms interact with each other and their non-living environment. 3. Interconnections between Intact ecosystems provide multiple services to humans, climate change and biodiversity including provisioning services, such as supply of food and natural resources, and regulating services, that and ecosystem services modify climate and hydrology, as well as cultural services An effective climate change response requires like spiritual fulfilment and recreation. Ecosystem consideration of the role of, and potential impacts on, conservation, restoration and management can play a biodiversity and ecosystem services. crucial role in climate change mitigation, for example through carbon sequestration and the reduction of Forest and wetland ecosystems house important carbon greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, such practices can stocks. Terrestrial vegetation alone is estimated to store be important for climate change adaptation, buffering approximately 450-650 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC).2 societies from the impacts of climate change. For example, However, ecosystem conversion and degradation caused flood plains and mangroves can provide natural protection by unsustainable management release carbon dioxide against extreme weather events and rising sea levels. to the atmosphere. Gross emissions from tropical deforestation and degradation, for example, averaged 2.8± Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation can 0.5 GtC per year in the 2000s.2 Sustainable management undermine the provision of valuable services. Ecosystems of ecosystems curbs greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can only withstand pressure up to a certain threshold. and therefore contributes to mitigating climate change. Once such a threshold has been surpassed, the damage to the ecosystem may be irreversible. The combined effects Biodiversity and ecosystem services support people to of different pressures, such as climate change, harmful adapt to climate change through approaches collectively land-use change, and over-exploitation, can lower the called ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA). Conservation, thresholds which can be withstood. Generally speaking, restoration and sustainable management of ecosystems the more diverse an ecosystem, the more resilient it is can help reduce vulnerability to climatic hazards such 2 Policy reviews and gap analysis can help ensure consistent and coherent policy development that takes account of the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services to people The IUCN-led IKI project ‘Mangrove Ecosystems for Climate Change Adaptation and Livelihoods’, involving several Pacific country governments, has contributed to the development of climate change and biodiversity policy by completing policy and legislation reviews. ©Milika Sobey as hurricanes, rising sea levels, floods and droughts. ecology, disrupting fishing, reducing food security and Furthermore, such approaches improve the resilience of ultimately reducing climate change resilience in local ecosystems to climate change so that they can continue communities. The restoration of floodplains could be a to deliver ecosystem services, supporting the provision suitable alternative approach that addresses flooding in the of alternative livelihood options in the face of climate first place, while promoting nutrient retention, biodiversity change. conservation and potentially climate change mitigation. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has, through the Cancun Adaptation 4. How to achieve climate change Framework, adopted in 2010 affirmed that enhanced action on adaptation should take into consideration and biodiversity objectives vulnerable ecosystems and integrate adaptation into relevant social, economic and environmental policies 4.1. Ensure policy coherence and actions. The list of adaptation actions that countries are invited to consider includes building the resilience of Many countries have established or are establishing ecological systems through sustainable management of specific policies or strategies on climate change natural resources. mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity. Policy design and implementation occurs through a range of legislation, While there are numerous opportunities to simultaneously strategies, plans, programmes and projects. It occurs promote climate change mitigation, adaptation and at local, regional, national and international levels, and biodiversity benefits, poorly conceived climate change is enacted and financed by a range of actors. The links interventions may harm biodiversity and even reduce between climate change and biodiversity mean that resilience to climate change. For example, an exclusive there is great potential for policies, and the programmes focus on carbon benefits in the implementation of REDD+3 and projects they inform, to achieve multiple objectives. could displace land use pressures to non-forest ecosystems There is also the potential risk for activities striving for one or lead to negative impacts on biodiversity elsewhere. objective to have unintended impacts on other objectives. This could have detrimental impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the local communities that In order to avoid conflicts and enable more effective depend on them for their livelihoods and resilience implementation, policies, programmes and projects to climate change. Governments have recognised this must be coordinated and consistent. Coherence can through the UNFCCC, where decision 1/CP.16 affirmed that be facilitated by understanding the different processes the implementation of REDD+ activities should promote involved in national implementation, and achievement and support the ‘Cancun Safeguards’. These are a series of of the objectives, of the UNFCCC, the Convention on social and environmental safeguards that cover issues such Biological Diversity (CBD), the Ramsar Convention as avoiding the conversion of natural forests, incentivising on Wetlands and other multilateral environmental the protection and conservation of natural forests and agreements. Indentifying the links can help to ensure their ecosystem services, and enhancing other social and effective and cohesive policies, programmes and projects environmental benefits. for climate change and biodiversity. Climate change adaptation actions that do not consider Specifically, many developing countries are establishing the role of, and potential impacts on, biodiversity can their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). have adverse effects – increasing rather than reducing Considering biodiversity within NAMAs can help ensure climate change vulnerability. For example, building a dam their