TheGlobal Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is a report[1] by theIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, on the global state ofbiodiversity. A summary for policymakers was released on 6 May 2019.[2] The report states that, due tohuman impact on the environment in the past half-century, the Earth's biodiversity hassuffered a catastrophic decline unprecedented inhuman history,[3] as an estimated 82 percent of wild mammalbiomass has been lost. The report estimates that there are 8 million animal and plant species on Earth, with the majority (5.5 million) represented byinsects. Out of those 8 million species, 1 million are threatened withextinction, including 40 percent ofamphibians, almost a third ofreef-buildingcorals, more than a third ofmarine mammals, and 10 percent of all insects.
In 2010 a resolution by the65th session of theUnited Nations General Assembly urged theUnited Nations Environment Programme to convene a plenary meeting to establish anIntergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).[4][5] In 2013 an initial conceptual framework was adopted for the prospective IPBES plenary.[5]
From 29 April to 4 May 2019, representatives of the 132 IPBES members met in Paris, France, to receive the IPBES's full report and adopted a summary of it forpolicymakers. On 6 May 2019, the 40-page summary was released.[6][7]
TheGlobal Assessment Report is a global-level assessment of changes in Earth'sbiodiversity that have occurred over the past 50 years. It draws an extensive picture ofeconomic development and its effects on nature in that period. TheReport is a collaborative effort by 145 authors from 50 countries,[8] produced over a three-year period and supported by some 310 authors' contributions.[9] TheGlobal Assessment Report comprises some 1,700 pages[8] evaluating over 15,000scientific publications and reports fromindigenous peoples.[10] TheReport's authors are predominantly natural scientists, one-third are social scientists, and about ten percent are interdisciplinary workers.[8]
The IPBESReport—an analogue to reports by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including theIPCC Fifth Assessment Report — is intended to form a scientific basis for informed political and societal decisions on biodiversity policies.[11] It is the first United Nations report on the global state of biodiversity since theMillennium Ecosystem Assessment published in 2005.[12]
"Finding out that 1 million species face extinction without radical corrective changes in human behavior is akin to finding out you have a fatal disease. One day you have a thousand problems; the next, you have just one. Nothing in today’s headlines compares to the catastrophic potential posed by climate change and the decimating effects of careless consumerism around the globe."
TheReport examined the rate of decline in biodiversity and found that the adverse effects of human activities on the world'sspecies is "unprecedented in human history":[14] one million species, including 40 percent ofamphibians, almost a third ofreef-buildingcorals, more than a third ofmarine mammals, and 10 percent of allinsects are threatened withextinction.[15] This is out of an estimated 8 million animal and plant species, including 5.5 million insect species. The drivers of these extinctions are, in descending order: (1) changes in land and sea use; (2) direct exploitation of organisms; (3) climate change; (4) pollution and (5) invasive alien species.[6]
Since the 16th century, at least 680 species ofvertebrates have become extinct.[16] By 2016, among mammals, more than nine percent oflivestock breeds were extinct, and another 1,000 breeds are threatened with extinction.[17] The authors have coined the expression "dead species walking" for the more than 500,000 species that are not yet extinct but, due to changes in, or reduction of, theirhabitats, have no chance of long-term survival.[18]
According to theReport, the threat tospecies diversity is human-caused.[19] The main cause is the human land requirement, which deprives other species of their habitats.[10] In the past 50 years, the world'shuman population has doubled,[20][12] per capita gross domestic product has quadrupled,[21] and biodiversity has suffered a catastrophic decline.[22] Most notably,tropical forests have been cleared for cattle pastures in South America and foroil-palm plantations in Southeast Asia.[23] Some 32 million hectares (79 million acres) oftropical rainforest were destroyed between 2010 and 2015, compared to the 100 million hectares (250 million acres) lost in the latter two decades of the 20th century. Already 85 percent of the world'swetlands have been lost.[24]
The totalbiomass of wild mammals has decreased by 82 percent, while humans and their farm animals now make up 96 percent of all mammalian biomass on Earth.[10] Additionally, since 1992 the land requirement for human settlements has more than doubled worldwide;[25] and humanity has rendered 23 percent of Earth's land ecologically degraded and no longer usable.[24]Industrial farming is considered to be one of the major contributors to this decline.[26][27] Around 25% of the planet's ice-free land is being used to rear cattle for human consumption.[10]
In the ocean,overfishing is a major cause of species loss.[16][27] Some 300–400 million metric tons (660–880 billion lb) ofheavy metals,solvents, toxicsludge, and other wastes per year enter thewater cycle from industrial facilities.[10][28] Since the 19th century, the world'scoral reefs have been reduced by half.[24]
When estimating the effect ofclimate change on species'extinction risk, the report concluded that global warming of 2 °C (3.6 °F) over the preindustrial levels would threaten an estimated 5% of the Earth's species with extinction even in the absence of any other factors likeland use change. If the warming reached 4.3 °C (7.7 °F), they estimated that 16% of the Earth's species would be threatened with extinction. In the ocean, they estimated that in the range between those "low" and "high" global warming scenarios, oceannet primary production would decline by 3% to 10% by the end of the century, while fish biomass would decline by 3% to 25%. Finally, even the lower warming levels of 1.5–2 °C (2.7–3.6 °F) would "profoundly" reduce geographical ranges of the majority of the world's species, thus making them more vulnerable then they would have been otherwise.[6]
Socioeconomic consequences include threatened loss offood production, due toloss of pollinator insects, valued at between $235 and $577 billion a year; and anticipated loss of the livelihoods of up to 300 million people, due to loss of coastal areas such asmangrove forests.[24]
TheReport warned that society should not fixate oneconomic growth,[29][30] and that countries should "base their economies on an understanding that nature is the foundation for development."[8][31] TheReport called on countries to begin focusing on "restoring habitats, growing food on less land, stoppingillegal logging andfishing,protecting marine areas, and stopping the flow of heavy metals andwastewater into the environment."[31] It also suggests that countries reduce theirsubsidies to industries that are harmful to nature, and increase subsidies and funding to environmentally beneficial programs.[32] Restoring the sovereignty ofindigenous populations around the world is also suggested, as their lands have seen lower rates of biodiversity loss.[33] Additionally, it highlighted needed shifts in individual behaviours, such as reducingmeat consumption.[10][23][34]
Since 1970 the global human population has more than doubled (from 3.7 to 7.6 billion), rising unevenly across countries and regions; and per capita gross domestic product is four times higher – with ever-more distant consumers shifting the environmental burden of consumption and production across regions.
"The food system is the root of the problem. The cost of ecological degradation is not considered in the price we pay for food, yet we are still subsidizing fisheries and agriculture." - Mark Rounsevell
Main offenders are industrial agriculture and fisheries.
A key constituent of sustainable pathways is the evolution of global financial and economic systems to build a global sustainable economy, steering away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth.