Transformative Change Will Save a Planet in Peril - IPBES

Windhoek — Nature is at a tipping point. With human activity having pushed up to 1 million plant and animal species close to extinction, securing sustainable development and halting global biodiversity collapse is no longer just an option but a requisite for human wellbeing.

A new report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) clarifies that only transformative change can reverse the biodiversity crisis and reset humanity's relationship with nature for just and sustainable futures.

The IPBES Assessment Report on the Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss and the Determinants of Transformative Change and Options for Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity, also known as the Transformative Change Report, launched this week during the 11th IPBES Plenary session being held in Namibia, has a stark warning: biodiversity decline is galloping ahead, whipped up by humanity's disconnect from and dominance over nature, coupled with the inequitable concentration of power and wealth. The prioritization of short-term individual and material gains, the report argues, has also led to the destruction of the fabric of life.

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Change and Act Now

The report highlights the need for addressing biodiversity loss through what the authors describe as transformative change--fundamental systemwide shifts in views, including ways of thinking, knowing, and seeing; structures, such as ways of organizing, regulating, and governing; and practices, including ways of doing, behaving, and relating. According to the report, dominant worldviews, structures, and practices have played a significant role in accelerating biodiversity loss. The findings suggest that exploring alternative approaches could contribute to reducing biodiversity loss and achieving a more just and sustainable future.

"Transformative change for a just and sustainable world is urgent," says Karen O'Brien (Norway/USA), co-chair of the assessment with Arun Agrawal (India & USA) and Lucas Garibaldi (Argentina). "There is a closing window of opportunity to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and the projected collapse of key ecosystem functions," she added.

O'Brien cites that under current trends, there is a serious risk of crossing several irreversible biophysical tipping points, including die-off of low-altitude coral reefs, die-back of the Amazon rainforest, and loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

Justifying the urgency of transformative change, the report notes that past and current conservation approaches have failed to stop the loss of the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. The cost of inaction is high, the report warns.

The report estimates that the cost of addressing biodiversity loss and the decline of nature around the world could double if actions are delayed even by a decade. The report also examines potential opportunities for businesses and innovation through sustainable economic approaches, including nature-positive economies, ecological economies, and Mother-Earth-centric economies.

But the report offers hope. Implementing sustainable solutions to reverse biodiversity loss could generate business opportunities estimated at more than USD 10 trillion in business while supporting 395 million jobs globally by 2030, the report says, stating that transformative change can be created by everyone. In addition, governments can enable transformative change by fostering policies and regulations to benefit nature.

Meeting Sustainable and Biodiversity Goals

The report builds on the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report, which found that the only way to achieve global development goals is through transformative change. The latest assessment, prepared over three years, was produced by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries.

Agrawal says promoting and accelerating transformative change is essential to meeting the 23 action-oriented targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030 and for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

"Transformative change is rarely the outcome of a single event, driver, or actor," says Agrawal. "It is better understood as changes that each of us can create and multiple cascading shifts that trigger and reinforce one another, often in unexpected ways."

While addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss is challenging as it is complex, it can be done, argues Garibaldi, co-chair of the assessment. He says a new transformation on the scale of the industrial revolution is needed--but one that conserves and restores the biodiversity of the planet rather than depleting it.

The cover of the Assessment Report on the Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss and the Determinants of Transformative Change and Options for Achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Credit: IPBES

Case studies of initiatives around the world with transformative potential show that positive outcomes for diverse economic and environmental indicators can happen in a decade or less.

The Transformative Change Report highlights that countries and people can advance deliberate transformative change for global sustainability by conserving places of value to people and nature that exemplify biocultural diversity. Furthermore, people can drive systematic change and mainstream biodiversity in the sectors most responsible for nature's decline.

"The agriculture and livestock, fisheries, forestry, infrastructure and urban development, mining, and fossil fuel sectors contribute heavily to the worst outcomes for nature," the report notes. "Transformative approaches such as multifunctional and regenerative land use can promote a variety of benefits for nature and people."

Inclusivity Key to Nature Transformation

While researching the report, the authors assessed 850 separate "visions of a sustainable world for nature and people," but found many did not challenge the status quo.

"The diversity of societies, economies, cultures, and peoples means that no single theory or approach provides a complete understanding of transformative change or how to achieve it," said O'Brien. "Many knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, provide complementary insights into how it occurs and how to promote, accelerate, and navigate the change needed for a just and sustainable world."

At the launch, on Wednesday, December 18, Agrawal said every global problem is often, in essence, unfolding in local context, and what is seen as a global problem is closely and intimately connected to Indigenous knowledge relevant to a local context. He said, for example, adaptation efforts relevant in the Arctic would not be relevant in tropical forests, and emissions that are caused by what is happening in agriculture are not relevant to emissions caused by coal mines or large factories.

"All of these things that we consider as global problems, we need to think about the local particularity of the problem that gets aggregated into a global problem," said Agrawal.

Coordinating lead author Rafael Calderon Contreras added that humanity was facing the most pressing and challenging crisis in history and that it was critical to learn from Indigenous communities on solutions to tackling the biodiversity crisis.

"What we found in our assessment is that we can learn from each other and that everyone has a role to play in achieving this vision of transformation that the assessment is pushing," said Contreras.

Visions for living in harmony with nature are more likely to succeed when they emerge from inclusive, rights-based approaches and stakeholder processes and when they incorporate collaboration for change across sectors, the authors suggest.

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Principles and Obstacles

The report says embracing the principles of equity and justice; pluralism and inclusion; respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships; and adaptive learning and action can achieve transformative change.

"The impacts of actions and resources devoted to blocking transformative change, for example through lobbying by vested interest groups or corruption, currently overshadow those devoted to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity," says O'Brien.

Garibaldi says studies have suggested that increasing biodiversity, protecting natural habitats, and reducing external inputs in agricultural landscapes can enhance crop productivity, for instance, by enhancing pollinator abundance and diversity.

Other strategies that can be used to advance transformative change include changing economic systems for nature and equity, for example, eliminating subsidies that contribute to biodiversity loss. Global public explicit subsidies to sectors driving nature's decline ranged from USD 1.4 trillion to USD 3.3 trillion per year in 2022, and total public funding for environmentally harmful subsidies has increased by 55 percent since 2021.

It is estimated that between USD 722 billion and USD 967 billion per year is needed to manage biodiversity and maintain ecosystem integrity. Currently, USD 135 billion per year is spent on biodiversity conservation, leaving a biodiversity funding gap of up to USD 824 billion per year.

Transforming governance systems to be inclusive, accountable, and adaptive will promote transformation, the report says, noting that shifting societal views and values to recognize human-nature interconnectedness was strategic for the world to act with haste.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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