What’s it about in short: Robert Bloom­field elab­o­rates on the intere­lat­ed­ness of such cru­cial threats as bio­di­ver­sity loss and cli­mate change.

When was it released: Decem­ber 26, 2015

By whom: Robert Bloom­field, in: The Guardian

More info: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/26/biodiversity-loss-climate-change

Short extract:

Since the Rio Earth Sum­mit in 1992, the media and many organ­i­sa­tions have pur­sued as sep­a­rate nar­ra­tives the issues of cli­mate, bio­di­ver­sity and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. One of the changes this year, at a UN level, has been recog­ni­tion that this does not make sense.

With­out pro­tect­ing and enhanc­ing bio­di­ver­sity in forests and other sys­tems we are los­ing our biggest ally. These liv­ing sys­tems can lock away car­bon at a frac­tion of the price that tech­ni­cal solu­tions for car­bon stor­age could only do at huge cost and by expend­ing even more energy.

For­tu­nately, over 2010 the Inter­na­tional Year of Bio­di­ver­sity involved 1,500 organ­i­sa­tions across 90 gov­ern­ments, 388 NGOs and 21 UN agen­cies to help raise aware­nes­sof the impor­tance of bio­di­ver­sity. The UN des­ig­nated 2011–2020 the Inter­na­tional Decade of Bio­di­ver­sity. Among the agree­ments that came out of the UN’s major bio­di­ver­sity meet­ing in Nagoya in Octo­ber were com­mit­ments from 191 nations to increase the amount of the planet set aside for bio­di­ver­sity pro­tec­tion to 17% of the land sur­face and 10% of the oceans.

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