Search

We recommend that both the CBD and UNFCCC SBSTA’s implement a joint work programme to fully operationalise the ecosystem provisions of the Paris Agreement to support and guide ecosystem-based and nature- based synergistic action in National Biodiversity Strategies & Action Plans (NBSAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). We recommend that a joint CBD/UNFCCC SBSTA work programme: • Explore and articulate the ways in which the biodiversity and climate crises (and solutions) amplify each other; • Explain why protection is the priority and restoration is secondary; • Explain the functional dependencies and linkages between biological diversity, ecosystem integrity and effective climate mitigation and adaptation; and • Promote actions that buffer and reconnect existing biodiverse and carbon dense natural ecosystems – such as support for conservation management of Indigenous Territories and Connectivity Conservation. 2. We recommend that the new ecosystem accounting framework developed by the UN Statistical Commission (UNSEEA-EA) be integrated under both CBD and UNFCCC reporting to reveal the synergistic benefits, including economic benefits, from protecting and restoring carbon-dense and species-rich ecosystems. 3. We also recommend that the CBD: • Share its knowledge and expertise with the UNFCCC and promote the benefits for climate mitigation of encouraging the protection, improved conservation management and regeneration of Earth’s high integrity, carbon dense ecosystems like primary forests in both NBSAPs and NDC’s; and • Acknowledge its responsibility to guide low risk, long lived and synergistic climate and biodiversity action in natural ecosystems.

The need for integrated policy action to mitigate climate change and conserve biodiversity has now been recognised in Article 38 of the Glasgow Climate Pact1 which: “Emphasizes the importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems, including forests and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems, to achieve the long-term global goal of the Convention by acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and protecting biodiversity, while ensuring social and environmental safeguards.”

Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer the opportunity to make substantial contributions to climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and ameliorating environmental degradation. But those contributions are not materialising, because current carbon accounting is deficient for use in evaluating NbS. As a result, the Nbs framework is being used to support interventions and activities that are not necessarily producing meaningful mitigation outcomes, while the actions which do have mitigation efficacy are ignored. The core problem is that data reported under the UNFCCC for net emissions and removals related to human activities are insufficient for the understanding of the carbon dynamics of ecosystems. Hence, NbS mitigation activities cannot be evaluated fully. The inadequacies of current carbon accounting are seen in the perverse outcomes that have occurred as a result of activities that cause degradation, such as: A) converting carbon-dense forests and peatlands into fast-growing plantations, B) preventing forests from reaching maturity because of the false accounting preference for young, fast-growing forests, C) harvesting forests for wood products and bioenergy that results in loss of carbon stocks where replacement of these stocks will only occur decades into the future, thus creating a carbon debt, D) erroneously considering carbon stocks in reservoirs of different longevities and risk of loss as fungible. The system of carbon accounting employed is a critical issue because accounting rules influence the reported emissions reductions, and thus directly impact policy outcomes. If the accounting rules do not fully reflect the mitigation outcomes, then a gap opens up between policy goals and actual mitigation achieved, thus undermining credibility as well as contributing to mitigation failure. The ways in which the characteristics of ecosystems are defined, measured and reported have major implications for how ecosystems are perceived, valued and managed. A more holistic and comprehensive approach to carbon accounting is needed if the potential of NbS actions is to be realised and the most effective options prioritised.

The ecological, social and economic values of forests are widely known and avoiding their loss and degradation has been recognized in national and international policy as critical for helping address the many global problems we face. Protecting and restoring forests are a key solution for the climate crisis as forest ecosystems remove carbon from the atmosphere and accumulate it in living trees, dead wood and the soil. Forest ecosystems provide the habitat for millions of species found nowhere else, and help regulate local climate conditions and provide our freshest water. They function as natural quarantines against pathogen spillover from wildlife to humans and livestock. Forests are also the customary territories of many of the world’s Indigenous and local communities. However, not all forests are equal, and the benefits they provide us vary according to their ecosystem condition. The differences in their condition are mainly the result of the impacts from human land use and associated activities. Yet little consideration has been given to differentiating forest types and management schemes even though forests in poorer condition are at a greater risk of loss from both human and natural disturbances. To date, there has not been an agreed framework for assessing, mapping, and reporting on forest condition and therefore to identify forests that have higher/lower values, provide more/less benefits and are at relatively greater/lesser risk of loss. The concept of ‘ecosystem integrity’ (which is also referred to as ‘ecological integrity’) provides the basis for new framework to addresses this gap and help minimize risk in forest-based mitigation policies and maximize forest-related co-benefits.