Experts stress the threat of climate change at COP15

Experts stress the threat nature of threats before China-led talks to save species before China-led talks to save species.

Climate experts have warned of the largest global gathering of environmental ministers on biodiversity after the extinction of species around the globe is accelerating at unprecedented rates despite efforts to mitigate biodiversity losses.

The biggest challenge to biodiversity is climate change and the ocean, its evil twin, ocean acidification, said Robin Craig, an environmental law professor at the University of Southern California, told China Daily.

The second part of COP 15, or the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or CBD, will be held in Montreal, Canada from Wednesday to December 19.

China is the president of COP 15 and China's Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu will be the speaker at the conference, under the theme of Ecological Civilization - Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth The conference will see the adoption of the post 2020 global biodiversity framework, which outlines what countries would need to do to meet the CBD's vision of living in harmony with nature by the year 2050.

The targets were not met due to a number of factors. Problems such as pollution, agricultural expansion, unsustainable hunting, illegal wildlife trade, and climate change are causing a rapid decline in the natural ecosystem worldwide.

The atmosphere absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The oceans absorb more CO 2 and become more acidic as the CO 2 level in the atmosphere increases, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Ocean acidification could threaten sea life and affect human health, according to the agency.

In 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, an equivalent to the UN Panel on Climate Change, warned that humanity has severely altered three-quarters of the planet's land surface, and 1 million species are threatened with extinction.

The report also noted that past and ongoing declines in biodiversity will undermine the prospects of countries achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which all UN member states pledge to meet by 2030.

While climate change has not been the dominant driver of biodiversity loss to date, in most parts of the world it is projected to become as important as the other drivers of change, Robert Watson, a past chair of the IPBES, said in 2019.

Watson said that governments across the world need to work together to address the loss of biodiversity, which is not only an environmental issue but also affects economic development and security.

COP 15 takes place just weeks after the UN's Climate Change Conference held in Egypt, which took place just weeks after COP 27, the UN's Climate Change Conference. Experts said that there is an increasing need for integrated solutions between the two issues, even though climate change is getting more attention from global leaders.

Climate change complicates efforts to provide species and ecosystems room to flourish because they are both shifting their ranges and rearranging their interactions as a result of warmer temperatures, Craig said.

It is important to get climate change under control and limit the total increase in global average temperatures to as low as possible, for biodiversity's sake and for humanity's own self-interest, she said.

Craig said that the greatest achievement of the global community in terms of boosting biodiversity is the recognition that preserving habitat is critically important national and international protected areas, especially protected areas that limit human intrusion, give other species places to be.