Scientists’ warning: six key points where biodiversity can improve climate change mitigation

Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Walisson Kenedy-Siqueira, Daniel Negreiros, Stephannie Fernandes, Milton Barbosa, Fernando Figueiredo Goulart, Simone Athayde, Christopher Wolf, Ian J Harrison, Matthew G Betts, Jennifer S Powers, Rodolfo Dirzo, William J Ripple, Philip M Fearnside, Geraldo Wilson Fernandes

BioScience, 74, 315-318

May 23, 2024

The focus on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere reflects increased public attention to climate change that potentially comes at the expense of other biodiversity challenges (Pereira et al. 2023a). This asymmetry between environmental agendas harms not only biodiversity but also climate-change mitigation because environmental issues are inexorably intertwined (Pörtner et al. 2023). Climate-change-related extreme weather events and disasters are emerging across the planet, resulting in unprecedented economic, social, and ecological losses (Ripple et al. 2017). Solving the climate crisis is urgent, but the net-zero carbon emission commitments for 2050 are likely to fail if biodiversity issues are not fully integrated into the international climate agenda. It is well understood that biodiversity promotes multiple socioenvironmental services and benefits, including water and air quality, crop pollination, food security, human health and well-being, and protection from soil erosion. Climate change can accelerate biodiversity loss, and the associated ecosystem degradation undermines ecosystem resilience and reduces climate-change mitigation by reducing carbon sequestration (Pörtner et al. 2023). This exacerbates the impact of extreme weather events, resulting in increased vulnerability and socioeconomic losses. Given these links, there is increasing recognition of the need for a more integrated approach to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Below, we list six ways in which the protection, conservation, and restoration of biodiversity can improve climate-change mitigation.

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Pereira, C. C., Kenedy-Siqueira, W., Negreiros, D., Fernandes, S., Barbosa, M., Goulart, F. F., Athayde, S., Wolf, C., Harrison, I. J., Betts, M. G., Powers, J. S., Dirzo, R., Ripple, W. J., Fearnside, P. M., & Fernandes, G. W. (2024). Scientists’ warning: six key points where biodiversity can improve climate change mitigation. BioScience, 74(5), 315–318. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae035