By Achim Steiner, United
Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive
Director, United Nations Environment Programme
With less than three years remaining, the
2010 target to reverse the rate of biodiversity
loss looks increasingly elusive. If anything,
the rate of extinction is accelerating.
In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
concluded that 60 per cent of the world's
ecosystems are in decline. Last year, the
World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List
of Threatened Species revealed that two
out of five species known to science could
face extinction, including one in eight
birds, a quarter of all mammals and one-third
of amphibian species.
Now this year's Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment
Report has confirmed that global warming
is affecting biological systems around the
globe, with between 20 and 30 per cent of
plant and animal species facing increased
risk of extinction as global average temperatures
rise. These estimates do not include the
myriad life forms yet to be catalogued,
whose role in the finely tuned balance of
ecosystems, or whose value to human society
as sources of medicines, foodstuffs or other
uses, may never be known. That, ultimately,
is the tragedy of extinction. Unlike some
other types of ecosystem degradation, extinction
cannot be reversed. Once a species has gone,
it is gone forever.
Reversing the decline in biological diversity
will increasingly depend on how successful
we are at slowing global warming. As the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment states:
"By the end of the century, climate
change may be the dominant direct driver
of biodiversity loss and changes to ecosystem
services globally." Recognizing the
growing severity of the problem, and the
need for more awareness and action, the
Convention on Biological Diversity has chosen
Biodiversity and Climate Change as the theme
for International Biodiversity Day 2007.
If we do not stop the climate juggernaut,
many, if not all, of the other strategies
for protecting increasingly threatened species
and habitats will be doomed to failure.
As an example, a recent study has shown
that amphibian and reptile populations in
the La Selva lowland forest reserve in Costa
Rica have declined by 75 per cent in the
past 35 years. The significance of the findings
is that this area is devoted principally
to these species' protection. The researchers'
conclusion is that climate change is to
blame.
Elsewhere in the world tropical forests
continue to be felled at an alarming rate?for
timber, subsistence and industrial agriculture,
and, increasingly, for crops such as soya
and palm oil to feed the growing global
demand for biofuels. This is bad news both
for biodiversity and for the climate. A
UNEP report, released in February 2007,
entitled The Last Stand of the Orangutan:
State of Emergency found that rainforest
in Indonesia and Malaysia is being felled
so quickly that 98 per cent could be gone
by 2022. As well as spelling doom for the
orangutan and countless other species, such
destruction contributes directly to global
warming, accounting for up to 20 per cent
of global annual greenhouse gas emissions.
At the same time, the value of tropical
forests for carbon sequestration?estimated
by some economists at tens or even hundreds
of billion of dollars a year?is also in
decline. The world lost 5 per cent of the
carbon storage capacity of its forests in
the first five years of this century alone.
It therefore stands to reason that protecting
existing tropical forests must be recognized
as a priority, both for biodiversity conservation
and for mitigating climate change. Unfortunately,
there are currently few, if any, economic
incentives for protecting forests, and many
for destroying them. For instance, under
the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto
Protocol, the only truly global instrument
for combating climate change, countries
can receive credits for planting new woodland,
but there is no incentive for protecting
existing forests. This has to change.
Later this year, parties to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change will meet in
Bali to continue negotiating the successor
to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2012. It is imperative that these negotiations
provide strong incentives to countries such
as Indonesia and Brazil to conserve their
forests.
Businesses the world over are also looking
for clear signals from governments that
the Kyoto mechanisms will continue post-2012
and be built on. Emissions reduction regimes,
carbon trading and other strategies for
mitigating climate change demand a long-term
view from governments and investors alike.
I firmly believe that protecting tropical
forests can form a keystone of a new carbon
trading regime, as well as providing a wide
variety of business opportunities?to the
benefit of the global climate and of species
and habitat protection.
Climate change is emerging as the single
greatest threat to biodiversity. This reality
serves an extra reminder of the importance
of pursuing the objectives of the Convention
on Biological Diversity and the 2010 target
with renewed vigour and commitment.
