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Climate change is already having impacts on biodiversity within Europe, with habitats and species needing to change and adapt to rising global temperatures and shifts in bio-climatic zones. Spatial planning represents an important intervention to further European, national and local biodiversity objectives for climate change adaptation. Drawing on case-studies of plans for inland and coastal areas, and involving stakeholder workshops, this paper reports on a trans-national study examining the scope of spatial plans in the Netherlands, England and France in addressing the impact of climate change. It concludes that spatial planning is making provision for biodiversity and dynamic natural processes. However, while good practice in planning for biodiversity under conditions of climate change is developing, systematic use is not being made of available procedures. The paper examines some of the barriers to implementation of this new policy commitment to climate change adaptation. Recommendations are made covering policy development to include climate change impacts upon biodiversity, modified procedures for plan-making and the appraisal of plans and projects. Amongst the specific measures recommended are the climate-proofing of projects and plans through the use of EIA and SEA; the integration of plans through adoption of common objectives and review of time horizons and boundaries; and an ecosystem-based planning approach. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change is an important cause of biodiversity loss. The conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources are key factors that can be effectively used to minimize the adverse impacts of global climate change. Efforts to understand and address the linkages between global climate change and biodiversity loss are both urgent and timely. Integrating responses related to these two global environmental challenges is especially relevant for small island developing States (SIDS) because the adverse impacts of climate change can impose severe stresses on biodiversity resources that are fragile, vulnerable and already under stress and the people who depend upon them. This paper argues that comprehensive assessments of adverse impacts of global climate change on the biodiversity resources of SIDS, and an improved understanding of relevant climate change related adaptation measures and sustainable energy policies (that are based on the principles of conservation, sustainable management and use of biodiversity resources) will enable SIDS to become more resilient and to develop better response capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy - climate change - land cover and use nexus is easy to grasp from a theoretical perspective; nevertheless, field data cannot easily show the intrinsic connections due to the limitations of temporal extent. Within the nexus, the concept of primary eco-energy has an operational value, relating land cover and use to the alterations of energy flows using a causal relationship. The paper links primary eco-energy to actual energy using the national territory of Romania as a case study accounting for the appropriate spatial extent. The analysis of unconventional energy, seen from the perspective of its spatial distribution, does not provide significant results in order to elucidate the relationships, but suggest possible impact on biodiversity and has a practical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joint editorial calling for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word oikos stems from the Greek, meaning the dwelling place of the human family and the concept of the wider household. Depending on the scale, oikos might be defined locally or globally. In this essay, our common oikos refers to the whole earth, whose sustainability is scientifically recognized as threatened by human greed. The issues of climate change, water crisis, loss of biodiversity, and many other sustainability problems are real challenges that cannot be solved by politics and technology alone. Ecumenical theology can help by catalyzing societal change with active hope. This paper develops the understanding of the ecumenical theology of oikos and extends reflection to a practical ecotheology of greed-line practice as a principle of sustainability--the greed index. It advocates for the resolute mode of hoping for the oikos and calls everyone to share this hope through ecumenical diakonia for the sake of creation. Keywords Ecotheology, common oikos, ecumenical diakonia, greed line, World Council of Churches, eco-justice, The word oikos is used more than one hundred times in the New Testament. Depending on the contexts, oikos may have the following meanings: descendants, families, family, home, homes, house, [...]

Assessing human impacts on climate and biodiversity requires an understanding of the relationship between the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere and global temperature (T). Here I explore this relationship empirically using comprehensive, recently-compiled databases of stable-isotope proxies from the Phanerozoic Eon (~540 to 0 years before the present) and through complementary modeling using the atmospheric absorption/transmittance code MODTRAN. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is correlated weakly but negatively with linearly-detrended T proxies over the last 425 million years. Of 68 correlation coefficients (half non-parametric) between CO2 and T proxies encompassing all known major Phanerozoic climate transitions, 77.9% are non-discernible (p > 0.05) and 60.0% of discernible correlations are negative. Marginal radiative forcing (ΔRFCO2), the change in forcing at the top of the troposphere associated with a unit increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, was computed using MODTRAN. The correlation between ΔRFCO2 and linearly-detrended T across the Phanerozoic Eon is positive and discernible, but only 2.6% of variance in T is attributable to variance in ΔRFCO2. Of 68 correlation coefficients (half non-parametric) between ΔRFCO2 and T proxies encompassing all known major Phanerozoic climate transitions, 75.0% are non-discernible and 41.2% of discernible correlations are negative. Spectral analysis, autoand cross-correlation show that proxies for T, atmospheric CO2 concentration and ΔRFCO2 oscillate across the Phanerozoic, and cycles of CO2 and ΔRFCO2 are antiphasic. A prominent 15 million-year CO2 cycle coincides closely with identified mass extinctions of the past, suggesting a pressing need for research on the relationship between CO2, biodiversity extinction, and related carbon policies. This study demonstrates that changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the rise of global temperature due to climate change. It mentions the effect of rising temperature on sea levels, biodiversity, and weather events. Comments from doctor Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, researcher at climate science and policy institute Climate Analytics, are also included.

The Last Interglacial (LIG; ca. 125,000 y ago) resulted from rapid global warming and reached global mean temperatures exceeding those of today. The LIG thus offers the opportunity to study how life may respond to future global warming. Using global occurrence databases and applying sampling-standardization, we compared reef coral diversity and distributions between the LIG and modern. Latitudinal diversity patterns are characterized by a tropical plateau today but were characterized by a pronounced equatorial trough during the LIG. This trough is governed by substantial range shifts away from the equator. Range shifts affected both leading and trailing edges of species range limits and were much more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere than south of the equator. We argue that interglacial warming was responsible for the loss of equatorial diversity. Hemispheric differences in insolation during the LIG may explain the asymmetrical response. The equatorial retractions are surprisingly strong given that only small temperature changes have been reported in the LIG tropics. Our results suggest that the poleward range expansions of reef corals occurring with intensified global warming today may soon be followed by equatorial range retractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ranges of plants and animals are moving in response to recent changes in climate. As temperatures rise, ecosystems with ‘nowhere to go’, such as mountains, are considered to be more threatened. However, species survival may depend as much on keeping pace with moving climates as the climate’s ultimate persistence. Here we present a new index of the velocity of temperature change (km yr-1), derived from spatial gradients (°C km-1) and multimodel ensemble forecasts of rates of temperature increase (°C yr-1) in the twenty-first century. This index represents the instantaneous local velocity along Earth’s surface needed to maintain constant temperatures, and has a global mean of 0.42 km yr-1 (A1B emission scenario). Owing to topographic effects, the velocity of temperature change is lowest in mountainous biomes such as tropical and subtropical coniferous forests (0.08 km yr-1), temperate coniferous forest, and montane grasslands. Velocities are highest in flooded grasslands (1.26 km yr-1), mangroves and deserts. High velocities suggest that the climates of only 8% of global protected areas have residence times exceeding 100 years. Small protected areas exacerbate the problem in Mediterranean-type and temperate coniferous forest biomes. Large protected areas may mitigate the problem in desert biomes. These results indicate management strategies for minimizing biodiversity loss from climate change. Montane landscapes may effectively shelter many species into the next century. Elsewhere, reduced emissions, a much expanded network of protected areas, or efforts to increase species movement may be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The usefulness of species distribution models (SDMs) in predicting impacts of climate change on biodiversity is difficult to assess because changes in species ranges may take decades or centuries to occur. One alternative way to evaluate the predictive ability of SDMs across time is to compare their predictions with data on past species distributions. We use data on plant distributions, fossil pollen and current and mid-Holocene climate to test the ability of SDMs to predict past climate-change impacts. We find that species showing little change in the estimated position of their realized niche, with resulting good model performance, tend to be dominant competitors for light. Different mechanisms appear to be responsible for among-species differences in model performance. Confidence in predictions of the impacts of climate change could be improved by selecting species with characteristics that suggest little change is expected in the relationships between species occurrence and climate patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has been predicted to lead to changes in local and regional species richness through species extinctions and latitudinal ranges shifts. Here, we show that species richness of fish in the North Sea, a group of ecological and socio-economical importance, has increased over a 22-year period and that this rise is related to higher water temperatures. Over eight times more fish species displayed increased distribution ranges in the North Sea (mainly small-sized species of southerly origin) compared with those whose range decreased (primarily large and northerly species). This increase in species richness can be explained from the fact that fish species richness in general decreases with latitude. This observation confirms that the interaction between large-scale biogeographical patterns and climate change may lead to increasing species richness at temperate latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential impacts of projected climate change on biodiversity are often assessed using single-species bioclimatic 'envelope' models. Such models are a special case of species distribution models in which the current geographical distribution of species is related to climatic variables so to enable projections of distributions under future climate change scenarios. This work reviews a number of critical methodological issues that may lead to uncertainty in predictions from bioclimatic modelling. Particular attention is paid to recent developments of bioclimatic modeling that address some of these issues as well as to the topics where more progress needs to be made. Developing and applying bioclimatic models in a informative way requires good understanding of a wide range of methodologies, including the choice of modelling technique, model validation, collinearity, autocorrelation, biased sampling of explanatory variables, scaling and impacts of non-climatic factors. A key challenge for future research is integrating factors such as land cover, direct CO2 effects, biotic interactions and dispersal mechanisms into species-climate models. We conclude that, although bioclimatic envelope models have a number of important advantages, they need to be applied only when users of models have a thorough understanding of their limitations and uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the primary causes of biodiversity loss. The immediate causes are apparent: expansion of cattle ranching and agricultural activities; extensive adoption of agroindustrial models that radically simplify the rural landscape and rely on unsustainable use of energy and chemicals; overexploitation of biotic resources such as fisheries, old growth forests, bush meat, and ornamentals; introduction of invasive species; and recently, the first effects of climate change. All the above reduce the integrity, size, and connectivity of habitats; extirpate populations of species and degrade their genetic pool, eventually leading to extinction; threaten the functioning of ecosystems; and, generally speaking, destroy biodiversity. Despite very real and extensive gaps in ecological science, researchers know a lot about many of the above causes. Databases of primary biodiversity data (observations of species) are growing very fast and becoming available through the Internet. The amount of remote sensing data we are obtaining--at unprecedented resolutions--is staggering, far beyond our current capacity to process and understand the data. Because natural scientists know about immediate causes of biodiversity loss, and more importantly, know how to study them, they tend to concentrate on them. The immediate causes of biodiversity destruction act on ecological processes amenable to the methods and theories of the natural scientist, enabling him or her to describe, measure, understand, and, ideally, predict. In short, natural science approaches the problem through the immediate causes. For most biodiversity goods and services, there are no markets in the global and national economies. This problem has been very well documented and it is one of the most powerful root causes of biodiversity loss. In many countries, the efforts of different branches of the government result in environmental policies that, taken together, are uncoordinated and often contradictory.

Over the past three decades, policy integration has become a key objective for guiding and harmonizing policies for sustainable development. Most recently, the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals have added new impetus to efforts of integrating competing objectives of environmental sustainability, social development, and economic growth, as well as of integrating issue-specific environmental policies on climate change and terrestrial and marine biodiversity. While multilateral environmental agreements are important international instruments for achieving sustainable development, there has been little focus so far on their contribution to policy integration. Covering the years from 2007 to 2016, this article presents an empirical analysis of sustainability policy integration (i.e., how multilateral environmental agreements integrate environmental, social, and economic issues in their decisions) and environmental policy integration (i.e., the outreach of multilateral environmental agreements to different environmental issue areas beyond their mandate). The analysis finds that multilateral environmental agreements have not moved toward further policy integration over the studied period. If policy and institutional coherence is a key global governance target in the post-2015 era, a concerted effort will be required to improve the extent of policy integration by multilateral environmental agreements. Keywords policy integration--multilateral environmental agreements--sustainable development goals--fragmentation--Global Governance, 1 Introduction Over the past three decades, (1) the integration of policies from different areas has become a central objective of sustainability governance, nationally as well as internationally. The 2030 [...]