Transformative change urgent to avoid ecosystems collapse, report warns
Immediate action can unlock massive business opportunities
The landmark IPBES assessment report, also known as the Transformative Change Report, was prepared over three years by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries.
Transformative change is urgently needed as there is a closing window of opportunity to avoid further biodiversity loss and prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and projected collapse of key ecosystem functions.
A new landmark report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), launched Wednesday in Windhoek, warns that deep, fundamental shifts in how people view and interact with the natural world are urgently needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
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 – was prepared over three years by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries from all regions of the world.
The report explains what transformative change is, how it occurs and how to accelerate it for a just and sustainable world.
According to the report, transformative change is necessary because most previous and current approaches to conservation, which aim to reform rather than transform systems, have failed to halt or reverse the decline of nature around the world, which has serious repercussions for the global economy and human well-being.
It warns that the cost of delaying actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and the decline of nature worldwide by even a decade is estimated to be double that of acting now.
The report also points out that immediate action can unlock massive business and innovation opportunities through sustainable economic approaches.
Recent estimates are that more than US$10 trillion in business opportunity value could be generated and 395 million jobs could be supported globally by 2030.
Problems identified
The underlying causes of biodiversity loss identified by the report are the disconnection of people from nature and domination over nature and other people; the inequitable concentration of power and wealth and the prioritisation of short-term individual and material gains.
The authors created and analysed a database of hundreds of separate case studies of initiatives around the world with transformative potential. Their analysis shows that positive outcomes for diverse economic and environmental indicators can happen in a decade or less.
The analysis also demonstrates that initiatives addressing greater numbers of indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, and those in which diverse actors work together, lead to more positive outcomes for societies, economies and nature.
It is estimated that between US$722 billion and US$967 billion per year is needed to sustainably manage biodiversity and maintain ecosystem integrity. Currently, US$135 billion per year is spent on biodiversity conservation, leaving a biodiversity funding gap of US$598 billion to US$824 billion per year.
Transformative approach
The report advises that some of the actions that could be taken to advance the necessary transformations include internalising environmental costs and using true cost accounting, reforming subsidies in sectors that contribute to biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, reconsidering global debts, greater positive private sector engagement, establishing sustainability as a core tax principle, and redefining goals, metrics and indicators to acknowledge social (including cultural), economic and environmental dimensions, as well as the different values of nature.
A key message from the report is that there is a role for every person and organisation to create transformative change at multiple levels, but that coalitions of actors and actor groups are more effective in pursuing transformative change than change pursued individually.
A new landmark report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), launched Wednesday in Windhoek, warns that deep, fundamental shifts in how people view and interact with the natural world are urgently needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
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 – was prepared over three years by more than 100 leading experts from 42 countries from all regions of the world.
The report explains what transformative change is, how it occurs and how to accelerate it for a just and sustainable world.
According to the report, transformative change is necessary because most previous and current approaches to conservation, which aim to reform rather than transform systems, have failed to halt or reverse the decline of nature around the world, which has serious repercussions for the global economy and human well-being.
It warns that the cost of delaying actions to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and the decline of nature worldwide by even a decade is estimated to be double that of acting now.
The report also points out that immediate action can unlock massive business and innovation opportunities through sustainable economic approaches.
Recent estimates are that more than US$10 trillion in business opportunity value could be generated and 395 million jobs could be supported globally by 2030.
Problems identified
The underlying causes of biodiversity loss identified by the report are the disconnection of people from nature and domination over nature and other people; the inequitable concentration of power and wealth and the prioritisation of short-term individual and material gains.
The authors created and analysed a database of hundreds of separate case studies of initiatives around the world with transformative potential. Their analysis shows that positive outcomes for diverse economic and environmental indicators can happen in a decade or less.
The analysis also demonstrates that initiatives addressing greater numbers of indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, and those in which diverse actors work together, lead to more positive outcomes for societies, economies and nature.
It is estimated that between US$722 billion and US$967 billion per year is needed to sustainably manage biodiversity and maintain ecosystem integrity. Currently, US$135 billion per year is spent on biodiversity conservation, leaving a biodiversity funding gap of US$598 billion to US$824 billion per year.
Transformative approach
The report advises that some of the actions that could be taken to advance the necessary transformations include internalising environmental costs and using true cost accounting, reforming subsidies in sectors that contribute to biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, reconsidering global debts, greater positive private sector engagement, establishing sustainability as a core tax principle, and redefining goals, metrics and indicators to acknowledge social (including cultural), economic and environmental dimensions, as well as the different values of nature.
A key message from the report is that there is a role for every person and organisation to create transformative change at multiple levels, but that coalitions of actors and actor groups are more effective in pursuing transformative change than change pursued individually.
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