Biodiversity loss: change approach, or estimated costs will be between 10 and 25 trillion dollars per year
Two IPBES Reports approved by 196 United Nations countries
Loss of biodiversity and water availability, food insecurity, health risks and climate change? How to deal with them? What decisions to make? If we pursue traditional approaches, it would generate estimated costs.
This is what emerges from the two evaluation reports of IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, approved on 16 December by scientists, experts and representatives of the governments of 196 United Nations countries. The platform, founded in 2012, which has the task of evaluating the state of biodiversity and eco-system services, with the aim of promoting the interface between science and politics. Italy joined the intergovernmental platform in January 2020 and is also participating in the work through the technical support of ISPRA.
The first, known as the Nexus Report, addresses the challenges linked to complex issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change and urges political decision-makers to take decisions and actions that look beyond the "silo" approach, not only to avoid negative effects but also to maximize benefits through "connecting elements" between different sectors. The case of schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that can cause lifelong health problems and affects over 200 million people worldwide, is reported. An innovative project in rural Senegal has taken a different approach, reducing water pollution and removing invasive aquatic plants that transmit disease, resulting in a 32% reduction in infections in children, improved access to fresh water and new revenue for local communities." The report provides over 70 such response options.
The second report, called Transformative Change Report for short, reiterates how urgent transformative change is to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and predicted collapse of key ecosystem functions, such as extinction of low-lying coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest, and the loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.
The report estimates that the cost of delaying action to halt and reverse the decline of nature around the world would be double what would be needed if we acted now and estimates that it would take just under $1 billion per year to halt this decline. per year, equal to approximately 1% of global GDP.
Acting immediately can also unlock huge business and innovation opportunities through sustainable economic approaches, such as nature-positive economics, ecological economics. According to recent estimates, business opportunities worth over $10 trillion could be generated and 395 million jobs created globally by 2030.