Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss

Climate change is inextricably linked to the accelerating destruction of nature. This report discusses how natural climate solutions, which include land management programmes that increase carbon dioxide storage and reduce carbon emissions, can help tackle both problems simultaneously.

As the world emerges from the health and economic crises caused by COVID-19, it faces converging and compounding environmental crises: climate change and the accelerating destruction of nature.

Although its benefits are often hidden, nature sustains over half of the global economy: it ensures food security and supports water cycles; it protects communities from floods, fires and disease; and it helps mitigate climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide and, in some cases, providing resilience against the effects of climate change. But this stock of natural assets is finite and dwindling.

The need for action is pressing: 32% of the world’s forests have been destroyed, 40% of invertebrate pollinators face extinction, and there has been a 23% reduction in land surface productivity due to land degradation. This drawdown on natural capital is accelerating climate change, decreasing resiliency, and reducing the availability of fresh water, clean air, fertile soil and biodiversity.

Meanwhile, climate change is having a substantial impact across the world. Rising temperatures, disrupted water supplies and flooding are set to displace millions of people. While there are tens of millions of environmental migrants today, approximately one billion people will live in countries that do not have the resilience to deal with expected ecological changes by 2050.

Involving nature