Brookings

January 25, 2021
The global public health and economic devastation caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak dramatically reinforces the urgent imperative to minimize the chances of another zoonotic pandemic. Reducing the likelihood of another viral spillover sweeping the world requires a fundamental change in how we interact with nature. It requires minimizing human interface with wild animals and wild spaces; eliminating transmission points where the likelihood of viral spillover to humans is high, such as unhygienic commercial markets in wild animal meat and live animals; better monitoring of the legal trade in wildlife; diligently suppressing illegal and unsustainable trade in wildlife; and conserving natural habitats. Conserving natural habitats in turn requires profound changes in human food production and human encroachment on remaining natural habitats. Decisionmaking about pandemic prevention and nature conservation must be elevated to the highest levels of governments on a permanent basis. Such changes will not be easy or cheap, but they are necessary.

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The Hill

January 25, 2021
The leader of the United Nations warned Monday of “existential threats” to the global climate and biodiversity. 

Speaking to the World Economic Forum, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that today’s world suffers from “fragility,” invoking issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and resulting job losses. 

“We also see fragility in the climate and biodiversity crisis. Both are existential threats, and both are getting worse,” Guterres said. 

“We are waging war on nature and destroying our life support system, and nature is striking back,” he added. 

Later in his speech, he said 2021 is the “make-it-or-break-it year” and called on countries to commit to reaching carbon neutrality. 

“We need to make sure that countries present their nationally determined contributions in 2021 with a dramatic reduction in emissions up to 2030,” he added, referring to national goals to reduce emissions. 

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EcoWatch

January 25, 2021
In 2010, world leaders agreed to 20 targets to protect Earth's biodiversity over the next decade. By 2020, none of them had been met. Now, the question is whether the world can do any better once new targets are set during the meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Kunming, China later this year.

To help turn the tide, a group of 22 research institutions have come together to develop four steps to protect life on Earth, the Environment Journal reported.

"The upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting, and adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, represent an opportunity to transform humanity's relationship with nature," the researchers wrote in One Earth Friday. "Restoring nature while meeting human needs requires a bold vision, including mainstreaming biodiversity conservation in society."

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Science Alert

January 22, 2021
A new study suggests a potential change in tropical rain belt patterns could threaten the livelihoods and food security of billions of people.

Today, the tropical rain belt brings with it heavy precipitation along the equator, but as different parts of Earth's atmosphere heat up at different rates, this belt looks likely to become disrupted as it gets attracted to warmer regions of air – threatening biodiversity and taking away the water that people rely on, including growing crops.

Researchers analysed 27 of the most up-to-date climate models to reach their conclusions, but the full impact of the climate crisis on the tropical rain belt only became clear when they isolated the effects on the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, and studied them separately.

"Our work shows that climate change will cause the position of Earth's tropical rain belt to move in opposite directions in two longitudinal sectors that cover almost two thirds of the globe, a process that will have cascading effects on water availability and food production around the world," says atmospheric scientist Antonios Mamalakis, from Colorado State University.

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PHYS.ORG

January 21, 2021
It is no secret that over the last few decades, humans have changed nature at an ever-increasing rate. A growing collection of research covers the many ways this is impacting our quality of life, from air quality to nutrition and income. To better understand how which areas are most at risk, scientists have combed through volumes of literature to present global trends in the relationship between human wellbeing and environmental degradation.

Their work, which included Fabrice DeClerck from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, was summarized in "Global trends in nature's contributions to people", which was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This systematic review builds on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment Report, which in 2019 provided the most comprehensive assessment yet of nature's decline and biodiversity loss, when it emphasized that 1 million plant and animal species face extinction.

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Associated Press

January 21, 2021
President Joe Biden returned the United States to the worldwide fight to slow global warming in one of his first official acts Wednesday and immediately launched a series of climate-friendly efforts that would transform how Americans drive and get their power.

“A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.”

Biden signed an executive order rejoining the Paris climate accord within hours of taking the oath of office, fulfilling a campaign pledge. The move undoes the U.S. withdrawal ordered by predecessor Donald Trump, who belittled the science behind climate efforts, loosened regulations on heat-trapping oil, gas and coal emissions, and spurred oil and gas leasing in pristine Arctic tundra and other wilderness.

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Inquirer.net - OpEd

January 19, 2021
This year sets off the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which scientists assert as humanity’s last chance to save the planet from the catastrophic impacts of climate change. This is our tipping point to halt and reverse the further degradation of ecosystems of land and sea while addressing pressing socioeconomic issues.

Home to 20 percent of the world’s known plant species, the Asean region, of which the Philippines is part, has a bigger stake in this critical decade. The region’s vulnerability to climate change as shown by the recent calamities that struck the Philippines and its neighboring countries makes the next 10 years of great consequences.

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The Guardian

January 18, 2021
A coalition of NGOs is calling for an urgent ban on destructive bottom trawling in EU marine protected areas, after the failure of member states to defend seas.

The ban is part of a 10-point action plan to “raise the bar” to achieve biodiversity targets, which they say will not be met by current promises, such as last year’s high-profile pledge by world leaders at the UN summit on biodiversity in New York to reverse nature loss by 2030. 

A raft of EU laws to safeguard marine life – including a duty on EU member states to achieve “good environmental status” in seas by 2020, to achieve healthy ecosystems and to introduce sustainable fisheries management – have not been enforced, says the group, which includes Oceana in Europe, Greenpeace and ClientEarth.

They warn that this failure, combined with existing pressures on Europe’s seas, including climate change, risks triggering irreversible changes to the ecological conditions under which humanity has evolved and thrived.

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China Daily

January 18, 2021
Analysts said the commitment by China and some 50 other countries to protect 30 percent of the earth's land and oceans by 2030 was a much-needed step to halt biodiversity loss and prevent species extinction.

Realizing the mission, though, will not be easy as the new goal would mean a huge scale-up in protected land and ocean area compared to current levels.

The new commitment by 50-odd countries is "very positive and very much needed to address the linked global crisis we are facing on climate change and biodiversity loss", said Bruce Dunn, director of environment and safeguards at the Manila based Asian Development Bank's sustainable development and climate change department.

"Realizing this ambition will be challenging, however, because it means doubling the existing land area protected, and more than tripling the area of protected oceans," Dunn said.

"Protection also implies sustainable management and sustainable financing, which has been a big challenge with the existing estate of protected areas."

China was among a group of more than 50 countries that pledged to protect the planet's land and sea area by 2030 as part of efforts to stop plants and animals from becoming extinct and address climate change issues.

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The Hill

January 14, 2021
In a new report released Thursday, the United Nations warned that countries need to work faster and allocate more resources toward adapting to climate change across both public and private sectors.

Outlined in the agency’s Adaptation Gap Report 2020, U.N. researchers underscore that despite some progress made in countries around the world adopting national adaptation strategies, levels of engagement and commitment vary.

Citing 2020’s natural disasters as some of the most cataclysmic on record and the record-breaking heat, U.N. authors emphasize the need for increased action amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Frontiers in Conservation Science

January 13, 2021
We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends. The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

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Republic of the Philippines

January 13, 2021
The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has expressed openness to the outcomes of the One Planet Summit, hosted by the French government, United Nations, and World Bank, on 11 January 2021.

“We welcome fresh commitments from world leaders, which the ACB views with much optimism and enthusiasm. These pledges pivot initiatives to conserve and restore ecosystems in the ASEAN region and across the globe, especially now that we are ushering in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration,” ACB Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim said.

At the summit, governments, such as the United Kingdom (UK) and France, announced earmarking funds for nature-based solutions.  UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK will commit at least GBP 3 billion (USD 4 billion) to climate change solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity over five years. The summit also saw USD 10 billion earmarked for the Great Green Wall, a project to restore degraded lands in the Sahel along an 8,000-kilometre band from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, along with new financial commitments from Norway and Germany.

Some 50 nations expressed support for the plan to carve out 30 per cent of global lands and oceans for protection by 2030 (30x30 goals).

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Xinhua

January 12, 2021
World leaders on Monday reiterated the urgent need for concerted global action to safeguard biodiversity and for a global governance framework on climate issues in the post-pandemic era.

"We have been poisoning air, land and water -- and filling oceans with plastics," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, while addressing world leaders at the One Planet Summit for biodiversity.

Organized by the French government in partnership with the UN and the World Bank, the One Planet Summit brought together world leaders to commit action to protect and restore biodiversity. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the event was largely virtual.

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Independent

January 12, 2021
A group of 50 countries has pledged to protect at least 30 per cent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030 in a bid to tackle the world’s worsening biodiversity crisis.

The commitment to restoring nature was announced on Monday at the One Planet Summit, a key meeting for world leaders hosted by France, the World Bank and the UN.

The coalition of countries, led by the UK, Costa Rica and France, together account for around 28 per cent of the world’s land animals and a quarter of the land’s carbon reserves.

The group aims to galvanise greater action on stemming biodiversity loss ahead of a key UN biodiversity summit, which is to be held in Kunming, China later this year in May.  

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PEW

January 12, 2021
In 2021, the parties to the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are expected to adopt a new 10-year global biodiversity framework with goals and targets for ocean protection.

In support of a growing call to protect and conserve 30% of the ocean by 2030, on Jan. 12 an informal coalition of nongovernmental and other civil society organizations shared with representatives from CBD a statement calling for a robust global biodiversity framework that will safeguard our ocean ecosystems for the long-term benefit of communities, fishers, biodiversity, and Earth’s climate.

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