• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Friday, February 26, 2021
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Environment

One Million Species Risk Extinction Due to Humans: Draft UN Report

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
04/23/19
in Environment, Featured
The Amazon rainforest in Brazil after clearcutting.

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil after clearcutting. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft U.N. report obtained by AFP that painstakingly catalogs 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 Policy Makers, which distills a 1,800-page U.N. assessment of scientific literature on the state of Nature.

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.

#UPDATE Map showing #biodiversity loss around the world compared to an intact ecosystem, measured as a percentage. https://t.co/BPHLu11xo1 #IPBES pic.twitter.com/Yp4ltY7Xq5

— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 23, 2019


“We need to recognize 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 U.N.-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 that 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 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 underway.

The most recent saw the end of the Cretaceous period some 66 million years ago, when a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid strike wiped out most lifeforms.

Scientists estimate that Earth is today home to some eight million distinct species, a majority of them insects.

A quarter of cataloged 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 percent.

Humans and livestock account for more than 95 percent of mammal biomass.


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 ten years, just as we need to do that with climate,” noted WWF chief scientist Rebecca Shaw, formerly a member of the U.N. 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.

To solve climate change and biodiversity loss, we need a #GlobalDealForNature. Sign the petition calling on world leaders to come together to protect and restore half of nature. https://t.co/gKSp6h1x3d #EarthDay pic.twitter.com/tQn4Jziblk

— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) April 22, 2019

“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 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 average temperatures go up a notch from 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) 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 U.N. climate report in October said that would still be enough to boost the intensity and frequency of deadly heat waves, droughts, floods, and storms.

The United States is the only nation that is not a signatory to the agreement.


Global Inequity 

Other findings in the report include:

– Three-quarters of land surfaces, 40 percent of the marine environment, and 50 percent 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 percent 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.


More on the Subject 

Thousands of German Teens Join Thunberg’s Climate Fight

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
World

Iran to Host UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief Ahead of Sanctions Deadline

by Staff Writer
February 20, 2021
Extreme weather led to floods in Indonesia in 2018.
Environment

480,000 Killed by Extreme Weather This Century: Analysis

by Staff Writer
January 25, 2021
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
Democracy at Risk

UN Rights Office Urges Navalny’s Immediate Release

by Staff Writer
January 18, 2021
Senegalese soldiers from the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, July 24, 2019.
World

UN Peacekeeper Killed in Mali, Seven Wounded: Spokesman

by Staff Writer
January 13, 2021
Mohammad Hassan Rezaiee was executed in Iran for a crime he allegedly committed when he was 16 years old.
World

UN Condemns Iran’s ‘Appalling’ Execution of Rezaiee, Young Offenders

by Staff Writer
December 31, 2020
The Central African Republic
World

Three UN Peacekeepers Killed in C.Africa Republic Ahead of National Polls

by Staff Writer
December 26, 2020
Next Post
Mohammed bin Salman Saudi Prince

Saudi Arabia Executes 37 Citizens, Crucifies One for 'Terrorism'

A protester holding a placard reading 'Sex work is work' while marching through Soho, NY, United States

Sex Workers Need Decriminalization, Not Stigma

Recommended

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

February 26, 2021
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum, last August

Sudan’s Normalization With Israel Is a Win for Everyone

February 26, 2021
Ethiopian refugees who fled the conflict in Tigray gather to receive aid at the Tenedba camp.

Eritrean Troops Killed ‘Hundreds’ in Ethiopia Massacre: Amnesty

February 26, 2021
COVID-19 vaccine

Syria Health Workers to Receive Covid Vaccine From Next Week

February 25, 2021
Moria migrant camp which was destroyed in a fire in 2020 on the Greek Aegean island of Lesbos.

Pregnant Migrant Sets Herself on Fire in Greek Camp

February 24, 2021
HRW released a statement on China's increasing prosecution of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

China Targets Uighurs With More Prosecutions, Longer Prison Terms: HRW

February 24, 2021

Opinion

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

What President Biden Should Do About the Uyghur Genocide

February 26, 2021
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Khartoum, last August

Sudan’s Normalization With Israel Is a Win for Everyone

February 26, 2021
Stolpersteine in Greifswald, Germany.

I Can’t Mark Where My Grandfather Is Buried, but I Want to Mark Where He Lived

February 26, 2021
Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley

Trump’s Acquittal and Republican Senators: Not Setting the Bar Low Enough

February 22, 2021
Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

Why Not Equality for America’s Puerto Rican Men and Women?

February 19, 2021
Refugee child holding up a sign reading 'we are human like you'

US Asylum Laws Must Catch up With the Reality of Today’s Refugees

February 18, 2021
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post