Target 8

Minimize the Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity and Build Resilience

Minimize the impact of climate change and ocean acidification on biodiversity and increase its resilience through mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction actions, including through nature-based solution and/or ecosystem-based approaches, while minimizing negative and fostering positive impacts of climate action on biodiversity.

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Minimize the impact of climate change and ocean acidification on biodiversity and increase its resilience through mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction actions, including through nature-based solution and/or ecosystem-based approaches, while minimizing negative and fostering positive impacts of climate action on biodiversity.

Target 8
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Rationale

GSAP

The magnitude of climate change has widespread and increasingly negative impacts on wild species, affecting their morphology, genetics, behaviour, abundance, distribution, extinction risk, and community interactions. Species in ecosystems such as coral reefs, high mountains, and at high latitudes are particularly at risk. It is critical to restrict average global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees, and interventions are needed now to help species adapt to the challenges they are already facing.

GSAP SKILLS

GSAP actions cover the use of IPCC global climate change scenarios to model threats, conducting climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessments for threatened species, identifying potential species refugia and climate corridors, incorporating vulnerability assessments into species conservation and recovery plans, and maintaining or restoring ecological networks.

Primary tools and resources

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CBD Guidance on enhancing positive and minimizing negative impacts on biodiversity of climate change adaptation activities

This document was produced by the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) in 2016. It provides guidance on enhancing the positive and minimizing the negative impacts on biodiversity of climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, based on recent literature, case studies, and experience.

Section I presents the main principles of enhancing positive and reducing negative impacts of climate change adaptation activities on biodiversity. Section II provides guidance on enhancing positive and minimizing negative impacts of climate change adaptation activities, with specific examples from different sectors and ecosystems. Section III provides examples of tools to enhance the benefits and reduce the negative impacts of mitigation on biodiversity, with references to other reports where additional information can be found.

IUCN Guidelines for Assessing Species’ Vulnerability to Climate Change

Several methods have been developed for climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) of species. There is no single ‘correct’ or established way to carry out CCVA of species and these guidelines aim to assist conservation practitioners to interpret and use the complex and often inconsistent CCVA literature. The guidelines indicate sensible and defensible approaches, in the context of the current state of knowledge and available resources.

The guidelines outline some of the terms commonly used in climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe three dominant CCVA approaches, namely correlative (niche-based), mechanistic, and trait-based approaches. Advice is provided on setting clear, measurable objectives and selecting CCVA approaches and appropriate methods. Guidance on using and interpreting CCVA results includes suggestions on data sources and their use, working with knowledge gaps and uncertainty, approaches for use in challenging contexts, and incorporating indirect climate change impacts such as habitat transformation.

It is hoped that the guidelines will promote standardization of CCVA terminology and provide a useful resource for those wishing to carry out CCVA at species, site, or site-network scales.

 

The guidelines are structured to provide (i) background information on definitions and metrics associated with CCVA; (ii) a discussion on identifying CCVA objectives; (iii) core guidance on selecting and applying appropriate methods; (iv) sections on interpreting and communicating results; (v) using results in IUCN Red List assessments; (vi) ways to address the many sources of uncertainty in CCVAs. A final section explores future directions for CCVAs and research needs. The guidelines also highlight 10 case studies that provide worked examples of CCVAs covering the range of methods described.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC provides regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports are also a key input into international climate change negotiations.

An open and transparent review by experts and governments around the world is an essential part of the IPCC process to ensure an objective and complete assessment and to reflect a diverse range of views and expertise. Through its assessments, the IPCC identifies the strength of scientific agreement in different areas and indicates where further research is needed. The IPCC does not conduct its own research.

The IPCC has completed its Sixth Assessment cycle, during which it produced Assessment reports from its three Working Groups, three Special Reports, a Methodology Report, and the Synthesis report (SYR 6) which was finalized in March 2023.

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC)

The GSPC  – A Plan to Save the World’s Plant Species – highlights the importance of plants and the ecosystem services they provide for all life on earth, and aims to ensure their conservation. The GSPC includes 16 targets for plant conservation. An updated GSPC was formally adopted at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD.

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Other tools and resources

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Climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation

Global climate mitigation policies are promoting a radical shift in emission reduction activities to achieve net-zero targets by 2050. Although recent scientific studies have  explored the impacts of some climate mitigation initiatives on biodiversity in various contexts, a global perspective of these developments is required. This report contributes to these needs and includes a current synopsis of the carbon market mechanisms implemented around the world, how these mechanisms are related to natural ecosystems, the potential impacts of their operation, and the potential contribution of natural ecosystems in the design of Nature-based Solutions to reducing carbon emissions.

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for Species

Changes in climate are transforming our planet. To adapt, we must rethink traditional approaches to conservation and development, moving beyond managing for persistence to managing for change. Climate change adaptation—the process of adjusting to the changing climate and its cascading impacts—seeks to reduce the vulnerability and build the resilience of people and nature to the current and anticipated effects of climate change while managing the uncertainties of the future.

AEWA International Species Action and Management Plans that envisage actions on climate change adaptation AEWA Lesser White-fronted Goose climate

IUCN Climate Change Specialist Group

The key objectives of this group are (1) to provide the IUCN Species Survival Commission with strategic guidance, support and information on climate change related risks to biodiversity and conservation responses, (2) to promote coordinated responses to climate change within and among the IUCN Species Survival Commission, IUCN programmes and IUCN partner organizations, (3) to catalyse and support sound science, effective policy and evidence-based conservation practice informed by a deeper understanding of climate change, its impacts on biodiversity, and the responses required.

This specialist group was established in 2013 as a Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

IWC science and stewardship of climate change impacts on cetaceans

The consequences of climate change are now understood to be widespread, affecting many different aspects of the environment.  The impact on cetaceans is believed to be equally broad, and climate change is also likely to exacerbate existing threats, for example habitat loss, pollution and disease.

IPCC Emissions Scenarios

AEWA Strategic Plan 2019-2027 Adopted at the 7th Session of the Meeting of the Parties

The first AEWA Strategic Plan was adopted at the 4th Session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP4) in 2008 through Resolution 4.7 and covered the period 2009-2017. Noting that MOP7 will not have taken place before 2018, in November 2015, MOP6 decided to extend the Strategic Plan until 2018 as per Resolution 6.14. Through the same Resolution, the MOP instructed the Standing Committee, working with the Technical Committee and supported by the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat, to revise the AEWA Strategic Plan taking into account the CMS Strategic Plan for Migratory Species 2015-2023, and to present a draft plan for the period 2019-2027 for consideration and adoption by MOP7. The current Strategic Plan for the period 2019-2027 was adopted at the 7th Session of the Meeting of the Parties on 4-8 December 2018 in Durban, South Africa.

Directrices de la CSE de UICN para evaluar la vulnerabilidad de las especies al cambio climático

La predicción de los impactos del cambio climático sobre la biodiversidad es un gran desafío científico. Se han desarrollado diferentes métodos para la evaluación de la vulnerabilidad al cambio climático (EVCC) de las especies y se está produciendo una gran y creciente cantidad de literatura científica al respecto. Nuestra motivación para realizar este documento es disminuir la magnitud del desafío que enfrentan los conservacionistas al interpretar y utilizar la compleja y frecuentemente inconsistente literatura sobre EVCC.

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