The world is not on track to meet targets set by government and business to eliminate deforestation by 2020, according to research by the University of Maryland and released on Global Forest Watch.

The data shows that deforestation has shifted geographically since the beginning of the century, when Brazil and Indonesia accounted for 71% of tropical primary forest loss.

These countries now contribute around 46% of deforestation loss, while that from countries including Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo rose considerably, the data shows.

Emissions

Primary, or “old growth” forest, is of particular value as it stores more carbon than other forests and is irreplaceable in terms of providing habitat to fauna and flora – with species living in such environments including orangutans and jaguars.

However, Indonesia massively reduced primary forest loss, with the rate of deforestation falling to its lowest rate since 2003, and 40% lower in 2018 than in the average annual rate of loss from 2002 to 2016.

The country’s government has protected some environments from development, a policy which seems to be working, the researchers noted. For example, in peatlands deeper than three meters, forest loss fell by 80%.

This has led to financial benefits for the country – in February, the Norwegian government announced that it would compensate Indonesia for reducing its deforestation-related emissions as part of a climate and forest partnership between the two countries.

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

The Scottish enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) recognised that economic growth would eventually have limits, based on the nature of a nation’s soil and climate.  

In his day, Smith was considered a moral philosopher and his early thinking on economic matters dealt with political economy, a term used for studying issues of production, trade, laws, and customs of individual countries and how income and wealth was distributed.  The science of economics was closely related to politics from its beginnings.  

Smith predicted the world’s economy could grow for about two hundred more years (from 1776) before natural limits were reached.

Modern economics 

Smith believed that individuals and nations bettered themselves through industrious behavior, saving for the future, and leaving future generations better off than one’s own.  

Most modern economists seem to have no concept of limits with regard to growth.  Indeed, an economy that is not growing is considered unhealthy.  

Economic success is measured in gross terms (Gross Domestic Product) with little or no attempt made to determine net gain or loss to either the economy or the supporting ecosystems. In other words, there is no apparent way to tell whether economic growth is in fact economical.  

Economists and policy makers tend to ignore the free services, such as clean air and water that nature provides, and thus fail to fully assign costs to ecosystems when evaluating the impacts of industry.  

It has been common practice to allow private companies to pocket the profits from their businesses while ignoring the collateral costs that are eventually paid by the public.

Such things as air, soil and water pollution from toxic chemicals discharged by heavy industry degrade the quality of life for all and governments (citizens) are often stuck with the costs of cleanup – if cleanup is indeed possible.

Increased consumption

Today, economic growth is primarily driven by consumption. It seems that people are no longer human beings dependent upon the free ecological services that nature provides, but merely consumers bent on acquiring ever more commodities.  

Growth is driven by consumption of natural resources such as fossil fuels, which are in finite supply, and underground aquifers, many of which are being depleted faster than they can be recharged.  

Virgin forests are rapidly being replaced by plantations of monocultured crops and livestock farms, with serious implications for biodiversity across the globe.

In much of the developed world, the modern version of capitalism has abandoned the whole idea of building wealth for future generations in favor of requiring future generations to pay for today’s largess.  

While the economy is driven by consumption, much of today’s consumption is fueled by ever-increasing debt. In reality, debt is a major instrument that keeps the economy growing like a cancer.  

Increasing debt 

In less than half a lifetime the United States has gone from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor. The US national debt is now over $22 trillion and state and local debt amount to an additional $3 trillion plus.  

Personal debt, primarily in the form of home mortgages, credit cards and student loans, amounts to over $17 trillion.  Total government and personal debt is well over $120,000 per citizen. 

And yet, it is still common to hear prominent citizens and politicians refer to the US as the world’s richest nation.          

Economic growth has become an obsession in much of the developed world and is worshiped as if it were a religion.  Politicians promise to create jobs and grow the economy and the majority of their constituents blindly accept growth as though it were a commandment in a holy book and therefore not to be questioned.  

Viable alternative 

A growth-dependent economic system that depends on the consumption of ever-increasing amounts of finite resources, is unsustainable and therefore demands a serious search for a viable alternative.

Most people have little knowledge of or interest in ecosystems, and go about their lives as if they believe ecosystems (or the environment) are part of the economy, and believe that if they make a reasonable effort to control pollution and clean up wastes, all will be well.  

In reality, precisely the opposite is true; the economy is just a system devised by a single species that is a part of a larger ecosystem.  If the economy grows beyond the ecosystem’s ability to support it, humankind must ultimately face the consequences.  

In the long run, the ecosystem is likely to prove far more resilient than the economy, but mankind may not like how nature resolves the inherent conflict between the two. 

A business that measures success based on gross sales but makes no effort to determine net profits is likely to fail.  By the same logic economists need a measure of net economic well-being as opposed to depending on gross value of goods and services to gauge success.  

Future generations 

Measures of success could include such things as whether debt is increasing or decreasing, the status of infrastructure maintenance, whether aquifers are being replenished as fast as they are being drained and whether other natural resources and life support systems are being used in a sustainable manner.  

The current system of measuring economic success based on GDP growth is deceptive in that it falsely portrays a growing economy as healthy even though it is not sustainable for future generations.  

From an ecological standpoint, GDP might just as logically stand for gross deceptive product.

This Author

Russell England is a retired fisheries biologist living in Gainesville, Georgia, USA.  He has written numerous articles and opinion columns in various magazines and newspapers and is the author of Gross Deceptive Product: An Ecological Perspective on the Economy published by Covenant Books in 2018.  

Climate campaigners have hailed the UK Parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency – a key demand of recent protests by Extinction Rebellion – as historic.

The motion was put forward by Labour MPs, and also states that Parliament “recognises the devastating impact that volatile and extreme weather will have on UK food production, water availability, public health and through flooding and wildfire damage”.

It also notes the UK is missing targets to protect fauna and flora, and that cuts to the funding of conservation body Natural England are a barrier to solving the problem.

Ambition

Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg tweeted: “Historic and very hopeful news. Now other nations must follow. And words must turn into immediate action.”

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas added: “I’m pleased Parliament has declared a climate emergency But words are cheap – we need urgent action. So to be clear You can’t declare climate emergency AND continue business as usual – fracking, building new runways, industrialised farming etc.”

The motion also called for the government to raise the ambition of the UK’s climate change targets to achieve net zero emissions before 2050, it added.

Binding

This follows advice by the government’s official advisors, the Committee on Climate Change, which published its advice on how to achieve this target today.

The committee concluded that the targets are achievable with known technologies, alongside improvements in people’s lives, and should be put into law as soon as possible.

Falls in cost for some of the key zero-carbon technologies mean that achieving net-zero is now possible within the economic cost that Parliament originally accepted when it passed the Climate Change Act in 2008, it added.

The Scottish Government has already put forward amendments to its Climate Change Bill to set a legally binding target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 at the latest, with Scotland becoming carbon neutral by 2040, in line with the committee’s advice.  

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

The government-appointed shale gas commissioner – who resigned at the weekend after just six months in the role – has admitted that she routinely throws away notes and deletes emails, a habit the campaign groups says may put her in breach of transparency regulations.

Unearthed had requested all email communications with the UK’s two leading fracking firms – INEOS and Cuadrilla. In response, Natascha Engel provided a handful of emails, but no communications covering 5 October, when she first entered the role, and 30 December.

She said: “I tend to deal with everything on the day and delete was has been done to avoid any huge build-ups or risk of duplication. The same is true of the few notes I take in meetings which I review in the evenings, action and throw away.”

Heavily influenced

However, such activity could be in breach of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, Unearthed said.

In her resignation letter, Engels cited the government’s refusal to review seismic activity standards, as called for by industry, after they had led to the frequent halting of fracking tests.

She wrote: “A perfectly viable and exciting new industry that could help meet our carbon reduction targets, make us energy secure, and provide jobs in parts of the country that really need them, is in danger of withering on the vine.”

She said the government was too heavily influenced by environmental and anti-fracking campaigners.

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She can be found tweeting at @Cat_Early76.

I can still remember the moment when my ecological fear awoke. A freshly-drowned harbour porpoise fell out of the gill net into my embrace with the weight and muscular fluidity of a deep-sleeping toddler.

I set about the science first – turning it over to measure its length, to fix a numbered tag to its flukes, to record its gender and guesstimate its age. I ticked off my tasks with the pretence of objectivity whilst its blowhole oozed with a yellow froth as its drowned lungs emptied onto my hands and across its shining skin.

I wiped the evidence away and looked up at the grief-stricken fisherman leaning out of the wheelhouse window above me. Science appeased, I lowered the porpoise over the stern and watched with growing sadness as this little spy-hopping corpse slipped out of the boat’s wake into the chopping waters of the Atlantic, and finally disappeared into the seascape.

Ecological rift 

Sadness was momentarily replaced by anger before that too was pushed to one side by a feeling of absolute, uncontrollable and questioning fear: what have we become? How did we become thus? And how do we get out of this mess?

Twenty-five years on my fear still remains, and my own nautical big reveal for what we’re now describing as the Anthropocene still haunts and drives me on.

Two main things have changed in that quarter century though. First, the situation has grown worse.

The ecological rift that I stared into on that traumatic day in the Celtic Sea has grown despite the valiant efforts of many of us – and we now find ourselves teetering on the brink of a Sixth Mass Extinction event.

Second, I have come to realise that the problem with my questions was my use of the word ‘we’.

Fear

Fear is, on the whole, a pretty healthy reaction to the scale and intensity of this ecocidal moment in history. It is the reaction to fear and its basis in knowledge or ignorance that is crucial.

Fear itself comes in two categories. There is motivational fear that is derived from knowledge, discovery or revealed truth – the kind that motives school children to march through the streets to highlight climate change.

Or there is the paralyzing kind of fear that comes from ignorance, naivety or falsehood – the kind that feeds self-loathing misanthropy and the Malthusian imagery of humanity-as-plague.

Fear of the Anthropocene contains elements of both and this contradiction needs to be worked out if we’re to feel any pride for (or even survive) this geological shift.

Deep time

The concept behind the Anthropocene – humanity carrying a geological footprint – is not new.

In the late nineteenth century, Friedrich Engels, in his strangely neglected and wonderfully unfinished book The Dialectics of Nature, pointed out that: 

“Man alone has succeeded in impressing his stamp on nature, not only by shifting plant and animal species from one place to another, but also by so altering the aspect and climate of his dwelling place, and even the animals and plants themselves, that the consequences of his activity can disappear only with the general extinction of the terrestrial globe” 

For all of the debates amongst geologists over the start date of the Anthropocene – the 1950s, 1750 or 1492 – it will appear in deep time as an episode that arises simultaneously with our speciation, a geological blink of a few million years.

The crucial question is not when it arose, but how it did so, and in what ways might it develop or end.

Social form

Identifying a geological shift by the collective actions of one species leads to a temptation to generalise from our evolved biology, from our apehood-ancestral origins.

But that road towards biological determinism is fraught with danger, cynicism and fatalism. Prisoners of our biology we may be to some degree but humanity requires a more nuanced critique if we are to understand and adapt our geological expression.

The biologist Richard Lewontin’s eloquence helps: “Biology is not physics, because organisms are such complex physical objects, and sociology is not biology, because human societies are made by self-conscious organisms”.

And the truism outlined by the neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran hammers the point home nicely: “Humanity transcends apehood to the same degree by which life transcends mundane physics or chemistry”.    

The character of our geological/ecological footprint, then, is set by our social form and the societal changes that have developed through human history.

Radical perspective

Societal formation – at every spatial level from the household to the global – is what nature wraps itself around without prejudice.

This is what human ecology entails with its history and potential for our positive or negative interrelationship with biodiversity.

This is why the character of the Anthropocene depends on whether we can reject and move on from this most ecologically dysfunctional phase of human history – neoliberal capitalism. 

Rephrasing the questions I asked myself on that trawler 25 years ago demanded a radical perspective on our ecological crisis, but the updated questions are fairer on humanity in the round and less paralysing: What has our social system made us become? How do those who shape our society produce environmental degradation, and fool us into blaming all humanity or even our biology for their ecological sins?

What future relationship can we strike with life on earth once we have found the courage and means to move on to a historically viable, post-capitalist, society?

Throttled Earth

Through the lens of biodiversity conservation – that vital field where we are knowingly or unknowingly striving to create a more convivial Anthropocene – I’ll be using these columns over the coming year to explore debates and options for the ecological road ahead.

The critical need to look forward into the Anthropocene, to embrace its positive potential, and to aim for meaningful sustainability, is highlighted by Barry Lopez in his first major work since the wonderful Arctic Dreams was published a generation ago:

“However it might be viewed, the throttled Earth – the scalped, the mined, the industrially farmed, the drilled, polluted and suctioned land, endlessly manipulated for development and profit – is now our home.

“We know its wounds. We have come to accept them. And we ask, many of us, what will the next step be?”

This Author 

Ian Rappel is a conservation ecologist. He is also a member of the Beyond Extinction Economics (BEE) network.

BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham has been the target of abuse after backing a legal challenge which resulted in restrictions on shooting “pest” birds.

Packham was part of an action which resulted in Natural England revoking three general licences which allowed the shooting of 16 species of bird, including crows, magpies, Canada geese and feral and wood pigeons.

He appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday to reveal he and his family had received “threats of a very serious nature” and shared a letter with the Daily Mirror which arrived at his home on Monday.

Bombarded with abuse

In block capitals, the letter says: “We know where you live Packham and we will get you some way or another. We want you dead and we will succeed.

“R.T.A? Poison there are numerous ways… as long as you f***ing die thats (sic) all what matters”.

Packham told GMB police had spent a “considerable amount of time” at his house over the last few days and he had been sent a package containing human excrement.

Packham said it is not just he and his family being targeted, but also businesses he works with.

Packham said: “I’m very resistant to this sort of thing. What worries me is that the charities that I’m affiliated with, the small businesses that I work for, these people aren’t set up to take this sort of abuse, and yet they’ve had to close their websites, their TripAdvisor accounts have had to be shut down, because they’ve been bombarded by these bullies who want to take aim at me.

“My message is clear. Please, take aim at me, but leave all of the charities, all of the other businesses that I work with, leave them out of it. They’re not necessarily sharing my views. They’re not a fair target.”

Licenses revoked

Packham said he can understand the argument from farmers because they have been “misinformed”.

Bodies including the British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC), Countryside Alliance, and the National Gamekeepers Organisation have written an open letter to Environment Secretary Michael Gove calling on him to launch an investigation into Natural England’s decision.

They complained that the revocation of the licences which previously allowed them to freely shoot birds such as carrion crows, wood pigeons, magpies and Canada geese had left them in chaos.

Natural England, the body advising the Government on managing the natural environment, took the decision after it was threatened with legal action by environmentalists.

Wild Justice – whose directors include Packham – sought a judicial review of the licences, which Natural England ultimately decided not to fight, believing it would lose.

National attention

As a result, three general licences for controlling wild birds were revoked on April 23, to be replaced by individual licences.

By Friday, only a new licence allowing the killing of carrion crows had been issued.

The issue was catapulted to national attention after the bodies of two dead crows were hung from Packham’s gate two days after Natural England’s decision.

BASC condemned the attack on the presenter’s home but said the new licensing rules are causing havoc at one of the busiest times of the farming calendar.

This Author 

This article was provided by the Press Association. 

Image: Community Spaces Fund, Flickr. 

There was a rumble in the air. Yes, it’s a cliché, but we were all so excited. Finally, we would get the chance to have our voices heard. They’re finally beginning to listen! Or are they?

‘All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group’. What a mouthful. ‘APPCCG’ is a tad catchier, I guess. We wouldn’t have needed to go to Parliament had the powers that be heeded the warnings earlier.

As Greta repeatedly pointed out that Tuesday afternoon, the scientific proof’s there. The existence of climate change is undeniable. But, as is often said, ‘better late than never’.

Truth

And now’s the time we need to act. All of us. We can all add our voices to the movement. We must do it. But why?

Well, because we haven’t any other option. We only have one Earth, after all. If we ruin our world, that’s it. No second chances. No Plan B, no Planet B. No going back. Extinction is permanent.

Greta’s speech captivated the audience, and was perhaps the most compelling part of the meeting. It reminded us that we, as citizens of the world, must work together to stop climate catastrophe.

She travelled by rail and road to deliver her important message to British politicians. “You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to”, she said.

It’s a sombre truth. “You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before.”

Storms

For the most part, they did lie. And not just in our country, mind you. Such untruths are being perpetuated by politicians in other nations, too. This needs to stop.

We must hold our representatives to account. No longer should we accept their excuses for not doing enough to combat climate change. Greta didn’t claim to have all the answers – “not even a scientist could”, she said.

To put it quite simply, some of the technology that could help us eliminate carbon dioxide just hasn’t been invented yet.

So the notion of waiting for it to be invented before doing anything substantial is, quite frankly, absurd. Especially when you consider the fact that new, highly polluting coal, oil and gas plants are being planned.

Countries in the rich ‘Global North’ contribute most to the problem of global warming, while those in the ‘Global South’ bear the brunt of its consequences, with the results of climate change including increased flooding, drought and storms, which can and all too often do lead to famine, problems with infrastructure and economic loss in such nations.

Responsibility

The United Kingdom, in particular, has a special role to play in leading the fight against climate change, as Greta quite rightly pointed out.

Our country is the birthplace of industrialisation, and through the subjugation of nations beyond the seas and exploitation of the world’s natural resources, our ancestors have unknowingly laid the foundations for environmental instability.

To be proud to be British, those of us who do identity as British should be proud to take responsibility for repairing our share of the damage us humans now collectively realise we have done to our planet.

Leaders of wealthy nations like ours are privileged to have such influence on the world stage. We, the people, should put pressure on them to tackle the climate crisis. And a percentage reduction of greenhouse gas emissions just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

One of the things the political leaders of our country need to do is to ensure that major polluters such as the United States and China are also on board. This isn’t going to be easy, but we mustn’t bury our heads in the sand. The fate of our world is at stake.

Contamination

The homes and livelihoods of our friends in the developing world are already in peril.

At the meeting, sat in the front row opposite Michael Gove, Yusif asked why MPs decided to vote for Heathrow expansion even though they knew how climate change is already having a detrimental effect on the lives of so many people around the world right now.

For instance, in some parts of Ghana, the country where Yusif was born and lived in until moving to the UK three years ago, the impact of climate change is projected to have a serious effect on food security.

Drought and flooding are common occurrences in the country, leading to poor crop harvests, impacting upon farmers and their families, and at the same time reduces the amount of safe, clean water for drinking, leading to dehydration.

Flooding can lead to the contamination of drinking water sources, so that water is unusable until repurified. Flooding has also lead to an influx of pests and increases in the incidence of waterborne diseases.

Havoc

Yusif never got an answer to his question from the Environment Secretary, but Greta replied pointedly with “I don’t know” when asked how MPs can vote through airport expansion when so many countries are suffering the impact of climate change now.

Our friend and fellow activist, Ummi Hoque, attended the meeting with us. Sadly, Bangladesh, where her family is from, is now a textbook example of a land seriously affected by climate change.

Much of the country is low-lying and prone to flooding, a problem that will only get worse should sea levels continue to rise due to our failure to reverse global warming.

As weather conditions become more extreme, there will be a severe loss of arable land, and an increased risk of damage to crops and livestock through natural disasters such as cyclones. The potential for loss of life around the world due to climate change is unimaginable.

If, around the world, we carry on polluting the atmosphere, and if we fail to reverse our carbon footprint, we will allow this destructive phenomenon to worsen. Climate change will not hesitate to wreak havoc on not just faraway countries but also our own.

Act now

Regardless of the current administration’s reluctance to declare it as such, this is a climate emergency. And it should be treated as such.

The time has come for all politicians around the world to put their party affiliations and other differences aside for the issue of climate change, which has often been described as the most pressing issue ever faced by the human race.

Those who have chosen to represent us in legislative bodies of government around the world need to speak the truth about the calamity of climate change and the threat it poses to everybody as a global crisis.

As Ummi said: “Climate change does not favour a specific race, class, age, gender or any other group”. It doesn’t discriminate on any grounds; it poses a threat to all.

We can’t wait until it’s too late. Climate change is something that we all have a responsibility to reverse. The time for us to act is now.

The Authors

Tom Jayamaha and Yusif Ibrahim became campaigners with Friends of the Earth after graduating from the ‘My World My Home’ leadership programme offered in their colleges.

Friends of the Earth took the government to court for failing to properly consider climate change and sustainable development when approving a third runway at Heathrow.

Represented by law firm Leigh Day, they argued that the government’s Airports National Policy Statement was unlawful as it breached sustainable development and climate duties in the Planning Act 2008. Primarily because – as the government admitted – it had not considered the Paris Accord and the needs of future generations related to it.

However, the case at the High Court did not succeed. There were a total of five claimants also taking other cases against the government, objecting to the expansion of Heathrow airport on a variety of grounds, but none of the claimants succeeded.

Major hurdles

On the climate case the court ruled that the Secretary of State did not have to consider Paris but only the targets and policy under the Climate Change Act, even though it is accepted those targets do not go far enough.

Will Rundle, Friends of the Earth’s Head of Legal, said: “On a day when parliament is being asked to declare a climate emergency and just before the independent Committee on Climate Change is expected to advise the government to tighten its belt on climate-wrecking emissions, this decision feels completely out of step with the real world around us.

“Heathrow airport is already the single biggest climate polluter in the UK, expansion will only exacerbate the problem.

“Parliament’s decision to green-light Heathrow was morally wrong, but today we believe the courts have got it legally wrong too. We are examining the judgement in detail and will consider all options including the possibility of appealing.

“The climate case against the third runway is growing stronger every day and Heathrow bosses face many more major hurdles before they can bring in the bulldozers. This fight will go on, the issue is just too big to drop.”

Bitterly disappointed

Rowan Smith, Solicitor at Leigh Day, said: “Our client Friends of the Earth is of course bitterly disappointed with the result, particularly after all the hard work involved in its tireless campaign against the damaging climate change impacts of a third runway.

“We will reflect on the judgment and advise our client on the prospects of any appeal.

“Despite the court’s decision in favour of the government we expect that this will be overtaken by tomorrow’s planned publication of advice from the Climate Change Committee on the need to revise the UK’s current climate change targets in line with the Paris Agreement.

“We hope that the Committee’s advice will positively move forward the arguments that Friends of the Earth have advanced throughout these legal proceedings.”

This Author 

Marianne Brooker is The Ecologist’s content editor. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth. 

Image: Thousands say ‘No to Heathrow expansion. Hacan2009, Flickr. 

Oceans mop up vast amounts (up to 80 percent) of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by humans.

The ecosystems that they support could provide new, albeit controversial, ways to draw carbon from the air.

But their health and management remains sidelined from the key political forum on climate change, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Landmark report 

That could change this year. Host nation Chile, which has control over almost 18 million sq km of the world’s oceans, is calling this year’s Cop25 UN climate conference in Santiago a “Blue Cop”.

At a special preparatory meeting in Madrid earlier this month politicians, scientists, and NGOs discussed ways to use the meeting to gain political traction.

Chile’s environment minister and the Cop25 president Carolina Schmidt told the meeting through a video: “Time is running out. This is why Chile has been pushing to highlight this problem.

“In our vision, there cannot be an effective response to climate change without a global response to ocean issues.”

The UN body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is due to release a landmark report on the complex linkages between ocean and climate change in September. This is expected to add impetus to Chile’s programme.

Marine issues

What it means to host a “Blue Cop” is still up for debate. Rémi Parmentier, secretary of Because the Ocean, an initiative signed by 23 countries at COP21 in Paris to call for the IPCC report, told Climate Home News “the role of the ocean in mitigating climate change, and the ocean change that it is causing (ocean warming, acidification, deoxygenation, etc) will take centre stage, now and in the future”.

Parmentier said: “Ocean and climate are two sides of the same coin: if we want to protect the climate, we must protect the ocean, and vice-versa.” 

According to observers from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, some governments at the meeting requested that ocean health be placed on the formal agenda for the Cop. This would hoist marine issues at the top of the list of climate priorities.

Other governments were more reluctant, stressing that the creation of special slots for ocean matters could delay negotiations.

Instead, the UN could hold a special event in relation to the publication of the IPCC report or release a political statement, they suggested. (The meeting was closed and ENB did not attribute the statements.)

Specific measures

Political statements are a common device in the UN process. They can propose solutions to specific problems, form new commissions or simply commit governments to place new attention on an issue.

Several countries, including Chile, Monaco and France, are pushing for countries to include ocean health issues alongside the energy transition, forestry, agriculture and industry in the national climate plans they submit to the UN climate process.

Launching the Cop25 talks this month, Chilean president Sebastian Piñera used his speech to call for this.

These voluntary plans can include anything governments wish, but their inclusion would indicate governments are considering what they can do to protect the ocean carbon sink.

Spain’s minister for the ecological transition Teresa Ribera said the IPCC report would identify specific measures that countries could take that could then be addressed in their reports.

Controversial technologies

Scientists and policy-makers are currently debating what these could be, with some calling to monitor ocean acidification or increase the number of marine protected areas.

Others have suggested that national jurisdictions should count and cut their shipping emissions, which account for 2.5 percent of global emissions, according to the latest International Maritime Organisation (IMO) study.

Participants also voiced caution that a renewed focus on the ocean could boost controversial technologies, such as ocean fertilisation and blue carbon credits.

Ocean fertilisation refers to the sprinkling of iron into the oceans to spur the growth of algae, or phytoplankton, which bloom and capture large quantities of carbon through photosynthesis.

Scientists are still evaluating the consequences of the geotechnology, however. Sunken blooms could, for example, deplete oxygen reserves, which are vital for marine life, and produce greenhouse gases that are more perilous than CO2.

Ocean grabbing

Head of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) Sébastien Treyer, told CHN that it was therefore “very important that all the potential negative impacts that solutions like ocean fertilisation can have on ocean ecosystems and ecological cycles are assessed” before promoting them through climate negotiations.

An emphasis on offsetting emissions through blue carbon, or the carbon stored by coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and salt marshes, also comes with its own set of risks.

In the past, the inclusion of such spaces into carbon markets have led to “ocean grabbing” from small-scale fishermen, civil societies such as Afrika Kontakt have argued.

Parmentier cautioned that “avoid repeating past abuse with regard to carbon credits”.

On top of the the Blue Cop and IPCC report, 2021 will also mark the start of the UN decade on Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

This Author 

Natalie Sauer reports for Climate Home News. She has contributed to a variety of international outlets, including Politico Europe, AFP and The Ecologist. This story was first published on Climate Home. 

As the impacts of humankind shift our world from the stable conditions of the Holocene and into the far less predictable and volatile conditions of the Anthropocene, we have a stark choice.

Do we act in our collective best interests to halt and reverse the damage being caused to our planet’s unique web of life, or do we press on regardless, pursuing narrow national and economic interests in the full knowledge that this will likely lead to disaster?

This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

Thus far, and despite the plainest warnings, it is the latter path that we are embarked upon. The consequences are seen in the rapidly changing climate, the depletion of resources, from soils to fresh water, ecosystem degradation and the hastening pace of extinction.

Wildlife restoration

If we are to avoid these trends causing major impacts in the human world, now is the moment that we must act.

This is not least because the risks are no longer in a theoretical future: they are in the here and now and arising from the damage that has already been done. This is why the agenda is now not only about the protection of the Earth’s natural systems, but also about their recovery.

The good news is that we do actually possess the capacity to turn things around. Across the world there is an increasing number of examples of how the curve of decline can be bent towards recovery.

The restor­ation of forests, the rebuilding of soil health, the rapid rise in renewable electricity generation, the expansion of some wildlife populations and the replenishment of critical resources such as fish and fresh water are being achieved in different places via combinations of individual and community leadership, private sector investment, local and national government action and the scaling up of more benign technology.

Despite the potential to do things differently, however, there are still some missing pieces, including the absence of a clear and unequivocal global signal to the effect that things really must change, at a considerably greater scale than is presently the case, and much faster.

Political will

Not only do we need a more visible statement of the need for rapid change: it must be spoken from the highest political level. 

The political appetite for action should, though, be considerably sharpened by the simple and inescapable fact that all economic growth and development in the end depends on natural systems.

While this basic truth has so far evaded the attention of many leaders, it is a reality that is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. For if we are to meet the needs of the billions of people now living on Earth, never mind their children and grandchildren, then we need to do things differently.

If there were sufficient political will, we could embark on the journey towards change this year.

Should world leaders see fit to rise to the occasion, this September’s United Nations General Assembly could provide the launch pad for an emergency plan to turn things around. The initiative needs to come from there, as our reaction to the unfolding global crisis must be based on a political signal from the highest level.

Strong signal 

This is not least because climate change talks, those in the Convention on Biological Diversity, or in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, are often quite technical and focused on their immediate agendas.

Negotiations are often conducted by civil servants or at best junior ministers, and so generally lack the mandate needed to address the bigger challenges at hand. When those challenges include an existential threat to our civilisations, we can see that the political space for action needs to be made considerably bigger.

This is why we need a clear and strong signal from heads of state to open the possibilities for breakthroughs in these more specific political processes.

As well as signalling the fact that we face an urgent situation, and restating the need for a step up in ambition, the heads of state must also set out their intention to integrate ongoing processes to ensure that the recovery of Nature, sustainable development, and efforts to avoid the worst effects of climate change become united in a single programme.

The reasons for this are quite straightforward. One is the extent to which efforts to protect the climate can sometimes undermine Nature protection; for example, some biofuels policies have incentivised more deforestation.

Climate change

On the other hand, some renewable energy technologies have not gathered scale as quickly as they could, because the policies to promote their proliferation did not take adequate account of Nature; for example, some onshore wind power developments have been stopped as a result of the risk they would pose to wildlife.

On top of this, neither the conservation nor the low-carbon agenda can succeed without complementary action in the other.

For example, we know that it will not be possible to achieve the 1.5-degree warming limit in the Paris Agreement on climate change without action to protect and restore natural systems, including forests and soils.

Similarly, it will not be possible to sustain the natural diversity of the Earth should temperatures exceed that level, for example as a result of damage caused to polar and coral reef ecosystems.

Also, if we are to adapt to the climate change already under way, the enhancement of the natural environment will be one of our best insurance policies, for example through the restoration of wetlands and coastal ecosystems so as to assist in reducing the risks posed by floods and inundation from the sea.

Political mandate

The achievement of both conservation and carbon goals will be possible only if we can embed genuinely sustainable development to ensure that the needs of all the world’s people are met while respecting envir­onmental limits.

Again, we know this can be done, because in some parts of the world environmental progress is being made at the same time as social progress.

Take the Central American republic of Costa Rica, where the electricity supply is now nearly 100 percent renewable and where since the 1980s both forest cover and per capita GDP have doubled at the same time.

Laying the foundations for the climate-friendly recovery of the natural world for the benefit of humankind is within our grasp.

We can do this, not least via a series of global meetings taking place in 2020, including what we can expect to be the historic meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Beijing and climate talks that will, among other things, review the adequacy of action to achieve the Paris agenda.

This will, however, require a clear political mandate from the world’s presidents and prime ministers. Since these leaders represent us, the citizens, one important thing we can all do between now and later this year is to insist they rise to the challenge. There is, after all, now no time to lose.

This Author 

Tony Juniper is Chair of Natural England. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine.