Pressure on biodiversity continues: UN report

 

Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO), launched today on the opening day of the Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) in Pyeongchang, Korea, reported that climate change is projected to become a major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change by 2050. 

Global temperature increases of 0.4 to 2.6 degree celcius by 2055 and 0.3-4.8 degree Celcius by 2090 would be accompanied by rising sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, substantial loss of summer Arctic sea ice and increasing ocean acidification. These changes would have a broad range of impacts on biodiversity, it said.

Biodiversity is also threatened by higher demand for fertile land. Wild fisheries are likely to collapse and aquaculture is foreseen to dominate fish production by 2050. Meanwhile, water scarcity is foreseen to increase in many regions of the world by 2050. At present, water for food production accounts for 84 per cent of global water consumption. 

GBO serves as the mid-term report on the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020. It suggests that the majority of its targets are still achievable, if changes in the business as usual scenario are introduced.