United Nations Report: One Million Species At Risk Of Extinction

NEWS.com.au - AFP

One million species on earth are at risk of dying out due to an ‘imminent’ mass extinction event, according to a shocking new United Nations report. Pic: AFP

Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft UN report obtained by AFP that painstakingly catalogues how humanity has undermined the natural resources upon which its very survival depends.

The accelerating loss of clean air, drinkable water, CO2-absorbing forests, pollinating insects, protein-rich fish and storm-blocking mangroves — to name but a few of the dwindling services rendered by nature — poses no less of a threat than climate change, says the report, set to be unveiled May 6.
Indeed, biodiversity loss and global warming are closely linked, according to the 44-page summary for policymakers, which distils a 1800-page United Nations (UN) assessment of scientific literature on the state of nature.

All the world's wild horses are extinct, according to a 2018 study. Picture: AFP

Delegates from 130 nations meeting in Paris from April 29 will vet the executive summary line by line. Wording may change, but figures lifted from the underlying report cannot be altered.
“We need to recognise that climate change and loss of nature are equally important, not just for the environment but as development and economic issues as well,” Robert Watson, chair of the UN-mandated body that compiled the report, told AFP, without divulging its findings.
“The way we produce our food and energy is undermining the regulating services that we get from nature,” he said, adding only “transformative change” can stem the damage.
Deforestation and agriculture, including livestock production, account for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions and have wreaked havoc on natural ecosystems as well.

Mass Extinction Event
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report warns of “an imminent rapid acceleration in the global rate of species extinction”.

The pace of loss “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years”, it notes.
“Half-a-million to a million species are projected to be threatened with extinction, many within decades.”
Many experts think a so-called “mass extinction event” — only the sixth in the last half-billion years — is already under way.
The most recent ended the Cretaceous period some 66 million years ago when a 10-kilometre-wide asteroid strike wiped out most lifeforms.
Scientists estimate Earth is today home to some eight million distinct species, a majority of them insects.
A quarter of catalogued animal and plant species are already being crowded, eaten or poisoned out of existence.
The drop in sheer numbers is even more dramatic, with wild mammal biomass — their collective weight — down by 82 per cent.
Humans and livestock account for more than 95 per cent of mammal biomass.

Extinction Rebellion climate change activists perform a mass ‘die in’ under the blue whale in the foyer of the Natural History Museum in London on April 22, 2019. Picture: AFP

Population Growth
“If we’re going to have a sustainable planet that provides services to communities around the world, we need to change this trajectory in the next 10 years, just as we need to do that with climate,” noted World Wildlife Fund chief scientist Rebecca Shaw, formerly a member of the UN scientific bodies for both climate and biodiversity.
The direct causes of species loss, in order of importance, are shrinking habitat and land-use change, hunting for food or illicit trade in body parts, climate change, pollution, and alien species such as rats, mosquitoes and snakes that hitch rides on ships or planes, the report finds.
“There are also two big indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change — the number of people in the world and their growing ability to consume,” said Mr Watson.
Once seen as primarily a future threat to animal and plant life, the disruptive impact of global warming has accelerated.
Shifts in the distribution of species, for example, will likely double if the global average temperature rise goes up a notch from 1.5 degrees Celsius to 2C.
So far, the global thermometer has risen 1C compared with mid-19th century levels.
The 2015 Paris Agreement enjoins nations to cap the rise to “well below” 2C. But a landmark UN climate report in October said that would still be enough to boost the intensity and frequency of deadly heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms.

Climate change activists attempt to approach the Houses of Parliament during the ongoing Extinction Rebellion climate change demonstration in London on April 23, 2019. Source: AFP

Global Inequity
Other findings in the report include:

• Three-quarters of land surfaces, 40 per cent of the marine environment and 50 per cent of inland waterways across the globe have been “severely altered”.
• Many of the areas where nature’s contribution to human wellbeing will be most severely compromised are home to indigenous peoples and the world’s poorest communities that are also vulnerable to climate change.
• More than two billion people rely on wood fuel for energy, four billion rely on natural medicines and more than 75 per cent of global food crops require animal pollination.
• Nearly half of land and marine ecosystems have been profoundly compromised by human interference in the last 50 years.
• Subsidies to fisheries, industrial agriculture, livestock raising, forestry, mining and the production of biofuel or fossil fuel energy encourage waste, inefficiency and over-consumption.

The report cautioned against climate change solutions that may inadvertently harm nature.
The use, for example, of biofuels combined with “carbon capture and storage” — the sequestration of CO2 released when biofuels are burned — is widely seen as key in the transition to green energy on a global scale.
But the land needed to grow all those biofuel crops may wind up cutting into food production, the expansion of protected areas or reforestation efforts.

‘You Stole Our Future’
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg met a cross-party group of British MPs on Tuesday, including Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn, as environmental protesters staged a ninth day of demonstrations in London.
In a powerful speech, the 16-year-old from Sweden implored the world’s leaders to act on climate change before it’s too late, fearing her generation “probably (doesn’t) have a future”.
“Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money,” Ms Thunberg said.
“It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.
“Around the year 2030, 10 years 252 days and 10 hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will most likely lead to the end of our civilisation as we know it,” she said.

Swedish environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg addresses politicians, media and guests at the Houses of Parliament in London on April 23, 2019. Source: Getty Images

“That is unless in that time, permanent and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society have taken place, including a reduction of CO2 emissions by at least 50 per cent.”
Ms Thunberg urged leaders to take a “cathedral thinking” approach to global warming — starting on an action plan even if we don’t have all the answers yet.
“The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth.
“Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.”
Ms Thunberg’s visit to the UK — she refuses to fly and only travels from her native Sweden by train, electric bus or car to keep her emission low — comes as climate activism group Extinction Rebellion has been protesting on the streets of London for more than a week.

Extinction Rebellion Demonstrators March to Parliament from Marble Arch

Links

• Impact of climate change on species | WWF
• Climate Change and Species Loss
• Climate Change Affects Biodiversity — Global Issues
• Climate change impacting ‘most’ species on Earth, even down to their genomes
• These creatures are going extinct and the reason is climate change
• Earth Day 2019: The future, survival of these species are in significant danger
• Species Most Endangered By Global Warming