IPBES Reports

The 11th Plenary meeting of the IPBES has approved 2 reports, namely ‘The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment Report’ and the ‘Nexus Report’ to accelerate biodiversity action and achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity.

Highlights of “Nexus Report”

• Full Name: The Assessment Report on the Interlinkages Among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health
• The Report undertakes scientific assessment of the complex interconnections between the 5  major challenges facing the humanity and explores specific response options to maximize co-benefits 
• Nexus Elements: The 5 global challenges below operates in a nexus and interact, cascade and compound each other in ways that make separate efforts to address them ineffective and counterproductive
  • Examples: Climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, water scarcity, and health risks 

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• Biodiversity Loss: Biodiversity is declining at a rate of about 2-6 per cent on an average every decade over the last half a century.
  • Drivers of Biodiversity Loss:  
    • Direct Drivers: These include land- and sea-use change, unsustainable exploitation, invasive alien species and pollution
    • Indirect Socioeconomic Drivers: These include, increasing waste, overconsumption and population growth
• Economic Cost of Neglect: The Report highlighted that, over half of the global GDP, approximately $58 trillion annually, depends on nature and the unaccounted-for costs for neglect of biodiversity in business as usual scenario is estimated to be around at least $10-25 trillion annually.
  • Delayed Action on Biodiversity Goals: Delaying action even by a decade could double the cost of acting now with an additional cost of at least $500 billion per year in additional costs. 
  • Ecological Economy: Immediate action to address the biodiversity crisis however will unlock massive business and innovation opportunities, generating $10 trillion and supporting 395 million jobs worldwide by 2030.
• Inequality: As per the report, 41% of people live in areas that saw extremely strong declines in biodiversity between 2000 and 2010, 9% in areas that have experienced very high health burdens and 5% in areas with high levels of malnutrition.
• Synergistic Approach:  The report has identified over 70 response options that produced positive outcomes across all the five elements.
  • Examples: To restore carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, soils and mangroves, effective management of biodiversity to reduce risks of diseases spreading from animals to humans, promotion of sustainable healthy diets, and reliance on nature-based solutions.

Highlights of The Transformative Change Assessment Report

• It builds on the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report, which found that the only way to achieve global development goals is through transformative change.
• Definition: Transformative Change is  defined as, 
  • A fundamental system-wide shifts in views ie. ways of thinking, knowing and seeing; structures ie. ways of organizing, regulating and governing; and practices ie. ways of doing, behaving and relating.
• Principles to guide Transformative Change:
  • Equity and Justice 
  • Pluralism and Inclusion
  • Respectful and Reciprocal Human-Nature Relationships
  • Adaptive Learning and Action.
• Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss:
  • Disconnection of people from nature and domination over nature and other people
  • The inequitable concentration of power and wealth
  • The prioritisation of short-term individual and material gains. 
• Challenges to Transformative Change: 
  • Relations of domination over nature and people, especially those that emerged and were propagated in colonial eras and that persist over time
  • Economic  and Political Inequalities
  • Inadequate Policies and Unfit Institutions
  • Unsustainable consumption and production patterns including individual habits and practices
  • Limited access to clean technologies and uncoordinated knowledge and innovation systems.
• Synergistic Strategies for Transformative Change:
  • Conserve, Restore and Regenerate Places of Value that Exemplify Biocultural Diversity:  Adopt a strategy where place- based actions, such as restoration activities, can also support cultural values, sustainable production and biodiversity.
    • Example: The Community Forestry Programme in Nepal integrates decentralized forest policy into local community needs, views and practices to restore and manage degraded forests.
  • Drive Systematic Change:  Mainstreaming biodiversity in the sectors most responsible for nature’s decline like agriculture and livestock, fisheries, forestry, infrastructure and urban development, mining and fossil fuel  by promoting multifunctional and regenerative land use.
  • Transform Economic Systems: Global economic systems need to be transformed drastically by adopting actions like,
    • To internalize environmental costs and using true cost accounting, reforming subsidies in environmentally damaging sectors, establishing sustainability as a core tax principle, and redefining goals, metrics and indicators to acknowledge social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions.
  • An Inclusive, Accountable and Adaptive Governance System: Integrating biodiversity into sector policies and decision-making with greater participation of actors with accountability are important elements in transforming governance systems
    • Example: Ecosystems-based spatial management of the Galapagos Marine Reserve, which supports sustainable fisheries and tourism – vital for more than 30,000 residents and 300,000 annual visitors.

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