Biodiversity 2020: climate change evaluation report

In 2011, the government published Biodiversity 2020: A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services [1]. This strategy for England builds on the 2011 Natural Environment White Paper - NEWP [2] and provides a comprehensive picture of how we are implementing our international and EU commitments. It sets out the strategic direction for biodiversity policy between 2011-2020 on land (including rivers and lakes) and at sea, and forms part of the UK’s commitments under the ‘the Aichi targets’ agreed in 2010 under the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 [3]. Defra is committed to evaluating the Biodiversity 2020 strategy and has a public commitment to assess climate change adaptation measures. This document sets out the information on assessing how action under Biodiversity 2020 has helped our wildlife and ecosystems to adapt to climate change. Biodiversity 2020 aims to halt the loss of biodiversity and restore functioning ecosystems for wildlife and for people. The outcomes and actions in Biodiversity 2020, although wider in scope, aimed to increase resilience of our wildlife and ecosystems in the face of a changing climate. In order to inform the assessment, we have defined which of the measurable outputs under Biodiversity 2020 contribute to resilience. Biodiversity 2020 included plans to develop and publish a dedicated set of indicators to assess progress towards the delivery of the strategy. The latest list (at the time of writing), published in 2017, contains 24 biodiversity indicators [4] that would help inform progress towards achieving specific outcomes, they are also highly relevant to the outputs (detailed below) that form the basis for this evaluation. The Adaptation Sub-Committee’s 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report [5] sets out the priority climate change risks and opportunities for the UK. The ASC also produced a review of progress in the National Adaptation Programme - “Progress in preparing for climate change” [6], which highlights adaptation priorities and progress being made towards achieving them. The UK Government’s response to the ASC [7] review includes a set of recommendations, of which Recommendation 6 states that “Action should be taken to enhance the condition of priority habitats and the abundance and range of priority species”. The recommendation further iterated that “This action should maintain or extend the level of ambition that was included in Biodiversity 2020” and that “An evaluation should be undertaken of Biodiversity 2020 including the extent to which goals have been met and of the implications for resilience to climate change.” To this, end an evaluation process has been put in place to define: a. What worked and why? Which actions or activities have had the greatest benefit in terms of delivering the desired outcomes? And, conversely, what prevented progress? b. Where are the opportunities? What are the financial, political, scientific and social opportunities for furthering the desired outcomes in the future? These objectives underpin the evaluation process for actions to date, and will also inform future actions and the iteration of a new nature strategy for England

A national-scale assessment of climate change impacts on species: assessing the balance of risks and opportunities for multiple taxa

It is important for conservationists to be able to assess the risks that climate change poses to species, in order to inform decision making. Using standardised and repeatable methods, we present a national-scale assessment of the risks of range loss and opportunities for range expansion, that climate change could pose for over 3,000 plants and animals that occur in England. A basic risk assessment that compared projected future changes in potential range with recently observed changes classified 21% of species as being at high risk and 6% at medium risk of range loss under a B1 climate change scenario. A greater number of species were classified as having a medium (16%) or high (38%) opportunity to potentially expand their distribution. A more comprehensive assessment, incorporating additional ecological information, including potentially confounding and exacerbating factors, was applied to 402 species, of which 35 % were at risk of range loss and 42 % may expand their range extent. This study covers a temperate region with a significant proportion of species at their poleward range limit. The balance of risks and opportunities from climate change may be different elsewhere. The outcome of both risk assessments varied between taxonomic groups, with bryophytes and vascular plants containing the greatest proportion of species at risk from climate change. Upland habitats contained more species at risk than other habitats. Whilst the overall pattern was clear, confidence was generally low for individual assessments, with the exception of well-studied taxa such as birds. In response to climate change, nature conservation needs to plan for changing species distributions and increasing uncertainty of the future

Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems

Natural and seminatural ecosystems must be at the forefront of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In the urgency of current circumstances, ecosystem restoration represents a range of available, efficient, and effective solutions to cut net greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Although mitigation success can be measured by monitoring changing fluxes of greenhouse gases, adaptation is more complicated to measure, and reductions in a wide range of risks for biodiversity and people must be evaluated. Progress has been made in the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and mitigation measures, but more emphasis on testing the effectiveness of proposed strategies is necessary. It is essential to take an integrated view of mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and the needs of people, to realize potential synergies and avoid conflict between different objectives

Agricultural lands key to mitigation and adaptation — Response

A reply to comment on the authors' paper 'Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems', Science (2019), 366(6471): eaaw9256

Measuring the success of climate change adaptation and mitigation in terrestrial ecosystems.

Natural and seminatural ecosystems must be at the forefront of efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In the urgency of current circumstances, ecosystem restoration represents a range of available, efficient, and effective solutions to cut net greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Although mitigation success can be measured by monitoring changing fluxes of greenhouse gases, adaptation is more complicated to measure, and reductions in a wide range of risks for biodiversity and people must be evaluated. Progress has been made in the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation and mitigation measures, but more emphasis on testing the effectiveness of proposed strategies is necessary. It is essential to take an integrated view of mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and the needs of people, to realize potential synergies and avoid conflict between different objectives