Biodiversity protection can help tackle climate change and poverty

Climate change and ecological scarcity are vital risks to be addressed for development to succeed in poor countries
Pavan Sukhdev, guardian.co.uk 10 Jun 10;

For years I have been accustomed to quizzical looks when I talk about "biodiversity" – and reactions ranging from incredulity to incomprehension when I talk about its economic value.

So it was a pleasant surprise to be told there were more than 1,000 comments, tweets and Facebook mentions regarding Juliette Jowit's Guardian article UN says case for saving species more powerful than climate change.

Below is my response to two of the questions most frequently asked by those commenting.

But before that, a word of clarification: what do we mean by biodiversity?

In common parlance, biodiversity is often understood as species diversity, while ecosystems are types of large-scale habitat: tropical forests, mangroves, coral reefs.

However, the definition of biodiversity agreed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity includes three levels – ecosystems, species and genes.

Furthermore, both ecologists and economists point out an important "quantity" dimension to these three levels: ecosystems are recognised by their extent as well as their category; species can be described in terms of abundance as well as their diversity; and genes are useful because of their population as well as their variability. All of this is biodiversity – in short, the living fabric of this planet.

Why can't prevention of global warming and preservation of biodiversity go hand-in-hand?

Biodiversity loss – razed rainforests, converted mangroves, lost coral reefs – results in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Conversely, reforestation and the restoration of marine ecosystems removes carbon and reduces climate change risks.

The onset of climate change destabilises ecosystems, pushing vulnerable species into extinction.

There are many strong links between preserving biodiversity and preventing climate change, and actions to achieve one will usually help the other.

Having said that, we need to be careful to avoid potential conflicts between climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation – for example, replacing diverse grasslands with vast plantations of exotic tree species to absorb carbon, or converting tropical peat swamps to oil palm plantations to produce biofuels.

This is very much a focus for both climate and biodiversity research and policymaking.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and many others are working hard to develop an international finance mechanism called Redd+.

This would incentivise those developing countries which Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus undertake activities such as afforestation, conservation, and the sustainable management of forests.

By making standing forests worth more than forests cut, they intend to reverse the loss of these vital ecosystems.

In doing so, they will have provided a platform if not a model for rewarding biodiversity conservation as well as climate mitigation.

It is very much a concern of the creators of this mechanism that climate change and biodiversity loss are not seen as siloed problems to be solved at arms length, but rather within the same mechanism.

National policymakers are being encouraged by the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity to look at these issues holistically – as indeed they should be.

Won't solutions to global warming and biodiversity loss conflict with the development needs of developing countries?

More than a billion of the world's poorest people depend on the free flow of nature's goods and ecosystem services – for example, the flood prevention and drought control provided by forests.

Forests also provide: nutrient cycling and freshwater regulation essential for subsistence farming; fuel wood for cooking; fodder for cattle; construction materials; fruit and other marketable foods. These benefits are generally available free.

Calculations by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative that I lead for Brazil, India and Indonesia have shown that the relative importance of such ecosystem services to the poor can be very high – they comprise 40% to 80% of their household incomes.

Replacing this supply to the poor is a non-trivial development challenge. The benefits of most largescale forest destruction flow to commercial interests, not to these poor communities.

At the same time, the vulnerability of the world's poor to the ravages of a changing climate are relatively high too, as described in the Stern report.

Therefore both climate change and ecological scarcity are vital risks to be addressed for development to succeed in developing countries.

In fast-developing countries, new green economy models are evolving, which may give them a competitive edge in a climate-constrained world.

Curitiba in Brazil is a model sustainable city. China's solar heaters warm 40m homes.

India pays stipends to millions of its rural poor for reforestation and water harvesting. Uganda provides a success story in organic agriculture.

And the best model of scalable solar photovoltaic lighting for village homes is in Bangladesh.

Therefore, I am convinced there are more development solutions than development problems in addressing global warming and biodiversity loss.

Pavan Sukhdev is an economist and leader of the UN's Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity initiative.