Climate Obstruction in the Global South: Future Research Trajectories

open access article“Climate Obstruction” broadly refers to campaigns and other policy actions led by well-organized and financed networks of corporate and other actors who have actively sought to prevent global and/or national action on climate change over the past four decades. In turn, these campaigns often shape public debates, which can affect political support and collective mobilization to mitigate climate change. However, to date, most of the research on climate obstruction has focused on countries in the Global North, especially the United States. Given considerable gaps in research and knowledge, this opinion paper presents a future research agenda needs to shine greater light on if and in what form climate obstruction in the Global South appears

Soil-derived Nature’s Contributions to People and their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Acknowledgments The input of PS contributes to Soils-R-GRREAT (NE/P019455/1) and the input of PS and SK contributes to the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme through project CIRCASA (grant agreement no. 774378). PR acknowledges funding from UK Greenhouse Gas Removal Programme (NE/P01982X/2). GB De Deyn acknowledges FoodShot Global for its support. TKA acknowledges the support of “Towards Integrated Nitrogen Management System (INMS) funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), executed through the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The input of DG was supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) strategic science investment fund (SSIF). PMS acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council (Project FT140100610). PM’s work on ecosystem services is supported by a National Science Foundation grant #1853759, “Understanding the Use of Ecosystem Services Concepts in Environmental Policy”. LGC is funded by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil – grants 421668/2018-0 and 305157/2018-3) and by Lisboa2020 FCT/EU (project 028360). BS acknowledges support from the Lancaster Environment Centre Project.Peer reviewedPostprin

Governing for transformative change across the biodiversity-climate-society nexus

Altres ajuts: Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MTransformative governance is key to addressing the global environmental crisis. We explore how transformative governance of complex biodiversity-climate-society interactions can be achieved, drawing on the first joint report between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to reflect on the current opportunities, barriers, and challenges for transformative governance. We identify principles for transformative governance under a biodiversity-climate-society nexus frame using four case studies: forest ecosystems, marine ecosystems, urban environments, and the Arctic. The principles are focused on creating conditions to build multifunctional interventions, integration, and innovation across scales; coalitions of support; equitable approaches; and positive social tipping dynamics. We posit that building on such transformative governance principles is not only possible but essential to effectively keep climate change within the desired 1.5 degrees Celsius global mean temperature increase, halt the ongoing accelerated decline of global biodiversity, and promote human well-being

The impact of interventions in the global land and agri‐food sectors on Nature’s Contributions to People and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Interlocked challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation require transformative interventions in the land management and food production sectors to reduce carbon emissions, strengthen adaptive capacity, and increase food security. However, deciding which interventions to pursue and understanding their relative co-benefits with and trade-offs against different social and environmental goals have been difficult without comparisons across a range of possible actions. This study examined 40 different options, implemented through land management, value chains, or risk management, for their relative impacts across 18 Nature's Contributions to People (NCPs) and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We find that a relatively small number of interventions show positive synergies with both SDGs and NCPs with no significant adverse trade-offs; these include improved cropland management, improved grazing land management, improved livestock management, agroforestry, integrated water management, increased soil organic carbon content, reduced soil erosion, salinization, and compaction, fire management, reduced landslides and hazards, reduced pollution, reduced post-harvest losses, improved energy use in food systems, and disaster risk management. Several interventions show potentially significant negative impacts on both SDGs and NCPs; these include bioenergy and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, afforestation, and some risk sharing measures, like commercial crop insurance. Our results demonstrate that a better understanding of co-benefits and trade-offs of different policy approaches can help decision-makers choose the more effective, or at the very minimum, more benign interventions for implementation

Scientific outcome of the IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change

The Scientific Outcome was produced by participants in the first-ever IPCC-IPBES co-sponsored workshop which took place in December 2020. This workshop is placed in the context of recent international agreements including the Paris Agreement, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and ongoing preparation for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that converge on solving the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss as essential to support human well-being.The Scientific Outcome further develops and substantiates the conclusions of the Synopsis, summarizes the emerging state of knowledge involving climate change and biodiversity with the objective to inform decision making and highlight options for action, and to identify knowledge gaps to be filled by scientific research. The Scientific Outcome includes seven sections, the references outlining the evidence reviewed within those sections and the report glossary

IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop report on biodiversity and climate change - Synopsis

This report presents the main conclusions of the first-ever IPCC-IPBES co-sponsored workshop which took place in December 2020. The workshop explored diverse facets of the interaction between climate and biodiversity, from current trends to the role and implementation of nature-based solutions and the sustainable development of human society. This report is underpinned by the Scientific Outcome, which includes seven sections, the complete references and the report glossary. You can find the Scientific Outcome here https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.465915