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IPBES: Four key takeaways on how nature loss threatens the global economy
The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a major new report.
An assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) outlines more than 100 actions for measuring and reducing impacts on nature across business, government, financial institutions and civil society.
A co-chair of the assessment says that nature loss is one of the most “serious threats” to businesses, but the “twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it”.
The “business and biodiversity” report says that global “finance flows” of more than $7tn (£5.1tn) had “direct negative impacts on nature” in 2023.
The new findings were put together by 79 experts from around the world over the course of three years, in what IPBES described as a “fast-track” assessment.
IPBES is an independent body that gives scientific advice to policymakers about biodiversity and ecosystems.
This is the “first report of its kind” to provide guidance on how businesses can contribute to 2030 nature goals, says IPBES executive secretary Dr Luthando Dziba in a statement.
Below, Carbon Brief explains four key findings from the “summary for policymakers” (SPM), which outlines the main messages of the report.
The full report is due to be released in the coming months after final edits are made.
1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature
2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature
4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people
1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature
Businesses of all sizes rely on nature in one way or another, says the report.
The SPM outlines that biodiversity provides many of the goods and services businesses need, such as raw materials from the environment or controlled water flows to reduce flooding during wet seasons and provide water in dry seasons.
Biodiversity also “underpins genetic diversity” that informs the development of products in many industries, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Individual businesses often do not address their impacts and dependencies on nature, “in part due to their lack of awareness”, the SPM says.
They also often do not have the data or knowledge to “quantify their impacts on dependencies on biodiversity and much of the relevant scientific literature is not written for a business audience”, the report claims. It adds:
“Lack of transparency across value chains, including of the risks and opportunities related to the sustainability of resource extraction, use, reuse and waste management, is a further barrier to action.”
The report says it is well established that businesses depend on biodiversity, but also that the actions of businesses “continue to drive declines in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”.
It adds that the size of a business “does not always reflect the magnitude of its impacts”, with companies in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, electricity, energy and mining having “relatively high” direct impacts on nature.
A “failure” to account for nature as the economy has expanded over the past two centuries has “led to its [...]
The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a major new report.
An assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) outlines more than 100 actions for measuring and reducing impacts on nature across business, government, financial institutions and civil society.
A co-chair of the assessment says that nature loss is one of the most “serious threats” to businesses, but the “twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it”.
The “business and biodiversity” report says that global “finance flows” of more than $7tn (£5.1tn) had “direct negative impacts on nature” in 2023.
The new findings were put together by 79 experts from around the world over the course of three years, in what IPBES described as a “fast-track” assessment.
IPBES is an independent body that gives scientific advice to policymakers about biodiversity and ecosystems.
This is the “first report of its kind” to provide guidance on how businesses can contribute to 2030 nature goals, says IPBES executive secretary Dr Luthando Dziba in a statement.
Below, Carbon Brief explains four key findings from the “summary for policymakers” (SPM), which outlines the main messages of the report.
The full report is due to be released in the coming months after final edits are made.
1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature
2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature
4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people
1. Businesses both depend on, and harm, nature
Businesses of all sizes rely on nature in one way or another, says the report.
The SPM outlines that biodiversity provides many of the goods and services businesses need, such as raw materials from the environment or controlled water flows to reduce flooding during wet seasons and provide water in dry seasons.
Biodiversity also “underpins genetic diversity” that informs the development of products in many industries, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
Individual businesses often do not address their impacts and dependencies on nature, “in part due to their lack of awareness”, the SPM says.
They also often do not have the data or knowledge to “quantify their impacts on dependencies on biodiversity and much of the relevant scientific literature is not written for a business audience”, the report claims. It adds:
“Lack of transparency across value chains, including of the risks and opportunities related to the sustainability of resource extraction, use, reuse and waste management, is a further barrier to action.”
The report says it is well established that businesses depend on biodiversity, but also that the actions of businesses “continue to drive declines in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”.
It adds that the size of a business “does not always reflect the magnitude of its impacts”, with companies in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, electricity, energy and mining having “relatively high” direct impacts on nature.
A “failure” to account for nature as the economy has expanded over the past two centuries has “led to its [...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
IPBES: Four key takeaways on how nature loss threatens the global economy The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a major new report. An assessment from the Intergovernmental…
degradation and unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss”, the SPM says. It adds:
“The decline in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people has become a critical systemic risk threatening the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing with implications for human rights.”
It is well established that nature loss as a result of “unsustainable use” threatens the “ability of businesses, local economies and whole sectors to function”, the report details.
These risks and others – such as extreme weather events and critical changes to Earth systems – are “among the highest-ranked global risks over the next 10 years”, it adds.
The SPM notes further that it is well established that risks around climate change and biodiversity loss “may interact to amplify social and economic impacts”.
These risks have “disproportionate impacts on developing countries whose economies are more reliant on biodiversity and have more limited technical and financial capacity to absorb shocks”, the report adds.
2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
The SPM says that it is well established that current political and economic practices “perpetuate business as usual and do not support the transformative change required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss”.
These practices have “commonly ignored or undervalued biodiversity, creating tension between business actions and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”, the report continues.
For example, the report says there is established but incomplete evidence that “time pressures on decision-making and timescales for investment returns and reporting by businesses – with an emphasis on quarterly earnings or annual reporting – are shorter than many ecological cycles”.
This prevents businesses from “adequately” considering nature loss in decision-making, says the SPM.
There is well established evidence that businesses fail to assign adequate value to “biodiversity and many of nature’s contributions to people, such as filtration of pollutants, climate regulation and pollination”, it continues.
As a result, “businesses bear little or no financial cost for negative impacts and may not generate revenue from positive impacts on biodiversity”, leading to “insufficient incentives for businesses to act to conserve, restore or sustainably use biodiversity”.
Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the assessment and a professor of ecological and environmental economics at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement:
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business. Yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it. Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points.”
It is well established that policies from governments can “further accelerate biodiversity decline”, the SPM says.
It notes that, in 2023, global public and private financial spending with direct negative impacts on nature was estimated at $7.3tn.
This figure includes public subsidies that are harmful to nature (around $2.4tn) and private investment in high-impact sectors ($4.9tn), says the report.
Industries harmful to nature include fossil-fuel extraction, mining, deforestation and large-scale meat farming and fishing.
In c[...]
“The decline in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people has become a critical systemic risk threatening the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing with implications for human rights.”
It is well established that nature loss as a result of “unsustainable use” threatens the “ability of businesses, local economies and whole sectors to function”, the report details.
These risks and others – such as extreme weather events and critical changes to Earth systems – are “among the highest-ranked global risks over the next 10 years”, it adds.
The SPM notes further that it is well established that risks around climate change and biodiversity loss “may interact to amplify social and economic impacts”.
These risks have “disproportionate impacts on developing countries whose economies are more reliant on biodiversity and have more limited technical and financial capacity to absorb shocks”, the report adds.
2. Current practices ‘do not support’ efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
The SPM says that it is well established that current political and economic practices “perpetuate business as usual and do not support the transformative change required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss”.
These practices have “commonly ignored or undervalued biodiversity, creating tension between business actions and the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”, the report continues.
For example, the report says there is established but incomplete evidence that “time pressures on decision-making and timescales for investment returns and reporting by businesses – with an emphasis on quarterly earnings or annual reporting – are shorter than many ecological cycles”.
This prevents businesses from “adequately” considering nature loss in decision-making, says the SPM.
There is well established evidence that businesses fail to assign adequate value to “biodiversity and many of nature’s contributions to people, such as filtration of pollutants, climate regulation and pollination”, it continues.
As a result, “businesses bear little or no financial cost for negative impacts and may not generate revenue from positive impacts on biodiversity”, leading to “insufficient incentives for businesses to act to conserve, restore or sustainably use biodiversity”.
Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the assessment and a professor of ecological and environmental economics at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement:
“The loss of biodiversity is among the most serious threats to business. Yet the twisted reality is that it often seems more profitable to businesses to degrade biodiversity than to protect it. Business as usual may once have seemed profitable in the short term, but impacts across multiple businesses can have cumulative effects, aggregating to global impacts, which can cross ecological tipping points.”
It is well established that policies from governments can “further accelerate biodiversity decline”, the SPM says.
It notes that, in 2023, global public and private financial spending with direct negative impacts on nature was estimated at $7.3tn.
This figure includes public subsidies that are harmful to nature (around $2.4tn) and private investment in high-impact sectors ($4.9tn), says the report.
Industries harmful to nature include fossil-fuel extraction, mining, deforestation and large-scale meat farming and fishing.
In c[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
degradation and unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss”, the SPM says. It adds: “The decline in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people has become a critical systemic risk threatening the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing with…
ontrast, just $220bn in public and private finance was directed to activities that contribute to protecting and sustainably using nature in 2023, adds the report.
(In recognition of the need to address public spending on activities that are destructive to nature, countries agreed to reduce biodiversity-harming subsidies by at least $500bn by 2030 as part of a global pact made in 2022.)
There are additional “barriers to action” facing businesses, ranging from challenging social norms to a lack of capacity, data or technology. These are summarised in the table below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-09_at_13.40.16.jpg Barriers preventing businesses from taking action on biodiversity loss. Credit: SPM.4, IPBES (2026)
“These barriers do not affect all actors equally and may disproportionately affect small and medium-sized businesses and financial institutions in developing countries,” adds the report. 3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature The SPM says it is well established that the “transformative change” required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss requires action from “all businesses”.
However, the report continues that it is also well established that the current level of business action is “insufficient” to deliver this “transformative change”. This is, in part, because the “enabling environment is missing”, it says.
IPBES says all businesses have a responsibility to act, even if this responsibility is not shared “evenly”.
“Priority actions” that businesses should take differ depending on the size of the firm, the sector in which it operates in, as well as the company structure and its “relationship with biodiversity”, the report notes.
The exact actions businesses should pursue also depends on companies’ “degree of control and influence over stakeholders”, it says.
According to the report, firms can act across four “decision-making levels” – corporate, operations, value chain and portfolio – to measure and address impacts on biodiversity.
(“Corporate” refers to decisions focused on overarching strategy, governance and direction of the business; “operations” to day-to-day activities; “value chain” to the system and resources required to move a product or service from supplier to customer; and “portfolio” to investments and business assets).
The SPM sets out a series of examples for how businesses can act across all four levels. These are summarised in the table below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-09_at_12.39.13.jpg Actions that businesses can take now to address their impacts and dependencies. Credit: SPM.2, IPBES (2026).
At a corporate level, the report notes that firms can establish ambitious governance and frameworks that can then have a ripple effect across the other levels, according to the report. This includes the integration of biodiversity commitments and targets into corporate strategy.
The SPM says that corporate biodiversity targets are “most effective” when they are aligned with “national and global biodiversity objectives” and “take into consideration a business’s impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”.
At an operations level, businesses should focus on ensuring that their operations are located and managed in a way that benefits biodiversity, IPBES says. Environmental and social impact assessments and management plans that are supported by “credible monitoring of both actions and biodiversity outcomes” can underpin this effort, the SPM notes.
It says it is well established that using the “<a href='https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/ddba2ea1d468985a9ce5d089abc5fad5/s0030605316001034a.pdf/avoiding-impacts-on-biodiver[...]
(In recognition of the need to address public spending on activities that are destructive to nature, countries agreed to reduce biodiversity-harming subsidies by at least $500bn by 2030 as part of a global pact made in 2022.)
There are additional “barriers to action” facing businesses, ranging from challenging social norms to a lack of capacity, data or technology. These are summarised in the table below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-09_at_13.40.16.jpg Barriers preventing businesses from taking action on biodiversity loss. Credit: SPM.4, IPBES (2026)
“These barriers do not affect all actors equally and may disproportionately affect small and medium-sized businesses and financial institutions in developing countries,” adds the report. 3. Businesses can act now to address their impacts on nature The SPM says it is well established that the “transformative change” required to halt and reverse biodiversity loss requires action from “all businesses”.
However, the report continues that it is also well established that the current level of business action is “insufficient” to deliver this “transformative change”. This is, in part, because the “enabling environment is missing”, it says.
IPBES says all businesses have a responsibility to act, even if this responsibility is not shared “evenly”.
“Priority actions” that businesses should take differ depending on the size of the firm, the sector in which it operates in, as well as the company structure and its “relationship with biodiversity”, the report notes.
The exact actions businesses should pursue also depends on companies’ “degree of control and influence over stakeholders”, it says.
According to the report, firms can act across four “decision-making levels” – corporate, operations, value chain and portfolio – to measure and address impacts on biodiversity.
(“Corporate” refers to decisions focused on overarching strategy, governance and direction of the business; “operations” to day-to-day activities; “value chain” to the system and resources required to move a product or service from supplier to customer; and “portfolio” to investments and business assets).
The SPM sets out a series of examples for how businesses can act across all four levels. These are summarised in the table below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-09_at_12.39.13.jpg Actions that businesses can take now to address their impacts and dependencies. Credit: SPM.2, IPBES (2026).
At a corporate level, the report notes that firms can establish ambitious governance and frameworks that can then have a ripple effect across the other levels, according to the report. This includes the integration of biodiversity commitments and targets into corporate strategy.
The SPM says that corporate biodiversity targets are “most effective” when they are aligned with “national and global biodiversity objectives” and “take into consideration a business’s impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people”.
At an operations level, businesses should focus on ensuring that their operations are located and managed in a way that benefits biodiversity, IPBES says. Environmental and social impact assessments and management plans that are supported by “credible monitoring of both actions and biodiversity outcomes” can underpin this effort, the SPM notes.
It says it is well established that using the “<a href='https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/ddba2ea1d468985a9ce5d089abc5fad5/s0030605316001034a.pdf/avoiding-impacts-on-biodiver[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
ontrast, just $220bn in public and private finance was directed to activities that contribute to protecting and sustainably using nature in 2023, adds the report. (In recognition of the need to address public spending on activities that are destructive to…
sity-through-strengthening-the-first-stage-of-the-mitigation-hierarchy.pdf'>mitigation hierarchy” framework can help businesses deliver “lasting outcomes on the ground”. (The framework guides users towards limiting as far as possible the negative impacts on biodiversity from development projects by first avoiding, then minimising, restoring and offsetting impacts.)
Next, the report notes there are actions businesses can take to drive change within its broader spheres of influence, including suppliers, retailers, consumers and peers within industry. This is important, the SPM notes, as significant impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature “accrue” across the lifecycle of products or services, especially those that rely on raw materials.
The report notes there is established but incomplete evidence that efforts to “map” company value chains and improve traceability by linking products and materials to suppliers, locations and impacts can help “identify risks and prioritise actions”.
While noting that “mapping” beyond direct suppliers “often remains challenging” for businesses, the report adds:
“Examples at the corporate and value chain levels exist, such as companies in the chocolate industry that have made advances in recording biodiversity dependencies to improve business decisions through full traceability of materials and improved supplier control mechanisms.”
Elsewhere, the SPM notes that there is also established but incomplete evidence that consumer-focused measures – such as product labelling, education and incentives – can “shape behaviour and improve transparency”. However, it cautions that the effectiveness of these strategies is “constrained by consumer scepticism, certification costs and business models reliant on unsustainable consumption”.
The SPM also highlights that, at a “portfolio” level, financial institutions can shift finance away from harmful activities – for instance, companies whose products drive deforestation – and towards business activities with positive impacts for biodiversity and nature.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Matt Jones, co-chair of the report, explains the rationale behind including options for how businesses can address biodiversity impacts in the document:
“Businesses and governments in different countries are coming at this from a very different perspective. So we can’t present a set of really prescriptive ‘how tos’…but we can present a huge number of options for action that businesses, governments, financial institutions and civil society and other actors can all take.”
Elsewhere, the report says it is well established that “robust, transparent and credible reporting of actions and outcomes” is required to “inspire others”. 4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people
Both governments and financial institutions can set policies and create incentives to protect biodiversity and stem its decline, says the SPM.
According to the report, the types of policies that governments can put in place that have an influence over business include:
* Fiscal policies, such as subsidies and taxes.
* Land use or marine spatial planning and zoning, such as designating new national parks or areas protected for nature.
* Permitting for business activities that affect nature – for example, by requiring environmental impact assessments.
* Public procurement policy (rules for how governments purchase goods and services).
* Controls on advertising and the creation of standards to prevent “greenwashing”.
Governments can also promote action through paying for ecosystem services, creating environmental markets and through “<a href='https://www.cbd.int/ab[...]
Next, the report notes there are actions businesses can take to drive change within its broader spheres of influence, including suppliers, retailers, consumers and peers within industry. This is important, the SPM notes, as significant impacts and dependencies on biodiversity and nature “accrue” across the lifecycle of products or services, especially those that rely on raw materials.
The report notes there is established but incomplete evidence that efforts to “map” company value chains and improve traceability by linking products and materials to suppliers, locations and impacts can help “identify risks and prioritise actions”.
While noting that “mapping” beyond direct suppliers “often remains challenging” for businesses, the report adds:
“Examples at the corporate and value chain levels exist, such as companies in the chocolate industry that have made advances in recording biodiversity dependencies to improve business decisions through full traceability of materials and improved supplier control mechanisms.”
Elsewhere, the SPM notes that there is also established but incomplete evidence that consumer-focused measures – such as product labelling, education and incentives – can “shape behaviour and improve transparency”. However, it cautions that the effectiveness of these strategies is “constrained by consumer scepticism, certification costs and business models reliant on unsustainable consumption”.
The SPM also highlights that, at a “portfolio” level, financial institutions can shift finance away from harmful activities – for instance, companies whose products drive deforestation – and towards business activities with positive impacts for biodiversity and nature.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Matt Jones, co-chair of the report, explains the rationale behind including options for how businesses can address biodiversity impacts in the document:
“Businesses and governments in different countries are coming at this from a very different perspective. So we can’t present a set of really prescriptive ‘how tos’…but we can present a huge number of options for action that businesses, governments, financial institutions and civil society and other actors can all take.”
Elsewhere, the report says it is well established that “robust, transparent and credible reporting of actions and outcomes” is required to “inspire others”. 4. Government policies can drive a ‘just and sustainable future’ for nature and people
Both governments and financial institutions can set policies and create incentives to protect biodiversity and stem its decline, says the SPM.
According to the report, the types of policies that governments can put in place that have an influence over business include:
* Fiscal policies, such as subsidies and taxes.
* Land use or marine spatial planning and zoning, such as designating new national parks or areas protected for nature.
* Permitting for business activities that affect nature – for example, by requiring environmental impact assessments.
* Public procurement policy (rules for how governments purchase goods and services).
* Controls on advertising and the creation of standards to prevent “greenwashing”.
Governments can also promote action through paying for ecosystem services, creating environmental markets and through “<a href='https://www.cbd.int/ab[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
sity-through-strengthening-the-first-stage-of-the-mitigation-hierarchy.pdf'>mitigation hierarchy” framework can help businesses deliver “lasting outcomes on the ground”. (The framework guides users towards limiting as far as possible the negative impacts on…
s/art10.shtml'>multilateral benefit-sharing mechanisms”, which set out rules for ensuring profits from nature are shared equally, says the SPM.
It says this includes the Cali Fund, a fund that businesses can voluntarily pay into after reaping benefits from genetic resources found in biodiverse countries.
(The fund was agreed in 2024 with expectations that it could generate up to billions of dollars for conservation, but it has so far only attracted $1,000.)
Governments could also promote action by phasing out or reforming subsidies that are harmful for nature, as well as fostering positive incentives, according to the report.
Overall, governments can work with other actors to create an “enabling environment” to “incentivise actions that are beneficial for businesses, biodiversity and society for a just and sustainable future”, says the SPM. It adds:
“Creation of an enabling environment that provides incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people could align what is profitable with what is good for biodiversity and society.
“Creating this enabling environment would result in businesses and financial institutions being positive agents of change in transforming to a just and sustainable economic system, by addressing their impacts on biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution, which are all interconnected.”
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/hero-5-01-2-300x200.png Cropped 28 January 2026: Ocean biodiversity boost; Nature and national security; Mangrove defence
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<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/C85YKG-300x200.jpg Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third
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<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/HMHKM5-300x200.jpg Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change
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<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/hero-5-01-2-300x200.png Cropped 14 January 2026: Wildfires scorch three continents; EU trade; Food and nature in 2026
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The post IPBES: Four key takeaways on how nature loss threatens the global economy appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief Staff
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61161
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A @grttme project - Other backups: @Hallotme
It says this includes the Cali Fund, a fund that businesses can voluntarily pay into after reaping benefits from genetic resources found in biodiverse countries.
(The fund was agreed in 2024 with expectations that it could generate up to billions of dollars for conservation, but it has so far only attracted $1,000.)
Governments could also promote action by phasing out or reforming subsidies that are harmful for nature, as well as fostering positive incentives, according to the report.
Overall, governments can work with other actors to create an “enabling environment” to “incentivise actions that are beneficial for businesses, biodiversity and society for a just and sustainable future”, says the SPM. It adds:
“Creation of an enabling environment that provides incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people could align what is profitable with what is good for biodiversity and society.
“Creating this enabling environment would result in businesses and financial institutions being positive agents of change in transforming to a just and sustainable economic system, by addressing their impacts on biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution, which are all interconnected.”
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/hero-5-01-2-300x200.png Cropped 28 January 2026: Ocean biodiversity boost; Nature and national security; Mangrove defence
Cropped
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28.01.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/C85YKG-300x200.jpg Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third
Food and farming
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21.01.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/HMHKM5-300x200.jpg Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change
Nature policy
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16.01.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/hero-5-01-2-300x200.png Cropped 14 January 2026: Wildfires scorch three continents; EU trade; Food and nature in 2026
Cropped
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14.01.26
The post IPBES: Four key takeaways on how nature loss threatens the global economy appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief Staff
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61161
Nature Climate on Telegram by @NatureClimateTelegram
A @grttme project - Other backups: @Hallotme
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Photo
G7 ‘falling behind’ China as world’s wind and solar plans reach new high in 2025
The G7 major economies “f[e]ll notably behind China and the rest of the world” in 2025 as the amount of wind and solar power being developed reached a new high, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
A new report from the analysts says that the amount of wind and large-scale solar capacity being built or planned around the world reached a record 4,900 gigawatts (GW) in 2025.
This “pipeline” of projects has grown by 500GW (11%) since 2024, GEM says, with the increase “predominantly” coming from developing countries.
China alone has a pipeline of more than 1,500GW, equivalent to that of the next six countries combined: Brazil (401GW); Australia (368GW); India (234GW); the US (226GW); Spain (165GW); and the Philippines (146GW).
In contrast, GEM says that G7 countries – the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan – represent just 520GW (11%) of the wind and solar pipeline, despite accounting for around half of global wealth.
Diren Kocakuşak, research analyst for GEM, said in a statement that G7 countries risk “ced[ing] leadership” in what is a “booming growth sector”. He added:
“The centre of gravity for new clean power has shifted decisively toward emerging and developing economies. [In 2025] G7 countries, despite their wealth, fell notably behind China and the rest of the world in year-over-year prospective capacity growth.”
Moreover, while others have surged ahead, wind and solar plans in the G7 have remained largely unchanged since 2023, as shown in the chart below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/renewable-capacity-gw.png Amount of wind and large-scale solar capacity being built or planned in the G7 major economies, China and the rest of the world, gigawatts, 2022-2025. Source: Global Energy Monitor.
Of the 4,900GW of projects being built or planned and tracked by GEM, 2,700GW is wind and 2,200GW is large-scale solar.
However, the rate of expansion of the global pipeline for new wind and solar has slowed from 22% in 2024 to 11% last year, GEM says, with a more pronounced drop for wind projects. It adds that this was due to political barriers and a string of failed auctions.
For example, offshore wind subsidy auctions in Germany and the Netherlands in 2025 did not attract any bids, while an auction in Denmark was officially cancelled last year after there were no bidders at the end of 2024.
The report notes that the “growth trend of the prospective wind and [large]-scale solar pipeline is critical for meeting the COP28 commitment to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, as the world enters the final five years of the implementation period”.
At COP28 in 2023, countries committed to tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030 from an unspecified baseline, generally assumed to be 2022.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world would need to complete an average 317GW of wind and 735GW of solar capacity every year to reach this target.
Some 758GW of wind and large-scale solar was under construction in 2025, GEM says,[...]
The G7 major economies “f[e]ll notably behind China and the rest of the world” in 2025 as the amount of wind and solar power being developed reached a new high, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
A new report from the analysts says that the amount of wind and large-scale solar capacity being built or planned around the world reached a record 4,900 gigawatts (GW) in 2025.
This “pipeline” of projects has grown by 500GW (11%) since 2024, GEM says, with the increase “predominantly” coming from developing countries.
China alone has a pipeline of more than 1,500GW, equivalent to that of the next six countries combined: Brazil (401GW); Australia (368GW); India (234GW); the US (226GW); Spain (165GW); and the Philippines (146GW).
In contrast, GEM says that G7 countries – the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan – represent just 520GW (11%) of the wind and solar pipeline, despite accounting for around half of global wealth.
Diren Kocakuşak, research analyst for GEM, said in a statement that G7 countries risk “ced[ing] leadership” in what is a “booming growth sector”. He added:
“The centre of gravity for new clean power has shifted decisively toward emerging and developing economies. [In 2025] G7 countries, despite their wealth, fell notably behind China and the rest of the world in year-over-year prospective capacity growth.”
Moreover, while others have surged ahead, wind and solar plans in the G7 have remained largely unchanged since 2023, as shown in the chart below.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/renewable-capacity-gw.png Amount of wind and large-scale solar capacity being built or planned in the G7 major economies, China and the rest of the world, gigawatts, 2022-2025. Source: Global Energy Monitor.
Of the 4,900GW of projects being built or planned and tracked by GEM, 2,700GW is wind and 2,200GW is large-scale solar.
However, the rate of expansion of the global pipeline for new wind and solar has slowed from 22% in 2024 to 11% last year, GEM says, with a more pronounced drop for wind projects. It adds that this was due to political barriers and a string of failed auctions.
For example, offshore wind subsidy auctions in Germany and the Netherlands in 2025 did not attract any bids, while an auction in Denmark was officially cancelled last year after there were no bidders at the end of 2024.
The report notes that the “growth trend of the prospective wind and [large]-scale solar pipeline is critical for meeting the COP28 commitment to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, as the world enters the final five years of the implementation period”.
At COP28 in 2023, countries committed to tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030 from an unspecified baseline, generally assumed to be 2022.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world would need to complete an average 317GW of wind and 735GW of solar capacity every year to reach this target.
Some 758GW of wind and large-scale solar was under construction in 2025, GEM says,[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
G7 ‘falling behind’ China as world’s wind and solar plans reach new high in 2025 The G7 major economies “f[e]ll notably behind China and the rest of the world” in 2025 as the amount of wind and solar power being developed reached a new high, according to Global…
with around three-quarters of this in China and India.
Both countries saw a reduction in the amount of electricity generated from coal last year, according to a separate recent analysis for Carbon Brief.
Note that GEM’s report predominantly uses data from its Global Solar Power Tracker and the Global Wind Power Tracker, the first of which only includes solar projects with a capacity of 1 megawatt (MW) and the latter with a capacity of 10MW or more.
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Coal
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Molly Lempriere
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61172
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Both countries saw a reduction in the amount of electricity generated from coal last year, according to a separate recent analysis for Carbon Brief.
Note that GEM’s report predominantly uses data from its Global Solar Power Tracker and the Global Wind Power Tracker, the first of which only includes solar projects with a capacity of 1 megawatt (MW) and the latter with a capacity of 10MW or more.
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/3DKN5HJ-300x200.jpg
Five key climate and energy announcements in India’s budget for 2026
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04.02.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2S877EA-300x200.jpg
Experts: Will Chinese wind power help or hinder Europe’s climate goals?
China Policy
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30.01.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2XCW1WW-300x200.jpg
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IEA: Declining coal demand in China set to outweigh Trump’s pro-coal policies
Coal
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17.12.25
The post G7 ‘falling behind’ China as world’s wind and solar plans reach new high in 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Molly Lempriere
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61172
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Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely
The hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through Chile and Argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
This is according to a rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) service.
Devastating wildfires hit multiple parts of South America throughout January.
The fires claimed the lives of 23 people in Chile and displaced thousands of people and destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands in both Chile and Argentina.
The authors find that the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the “high fire danger” are expected to occur once every five years, but that these conditions would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change.
In today’s climate, rainfall intensity during the “fire season” is around 20-25% lower in the areas covered by the study than it would be in a world without human-caused emissions, the study adds.
Study author Prof Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:
“We’re confident in saying that the main driver of this increased fire risk is human-caused warming. These trends are projected to continue in the future as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels.”
‘Significant’ damage
The recent wildfires in Chile and Argentina have been “one of the most significant and damaging events in the region”, the report says.
In the lead-up to the fires, both countries were gripped by intense heatwaves and droughts.
The authors analysed two regions – one in central Chile and the other in Argentine Patagonia, along the border between Argentina and Chile.
For example, in Argentina’s northern Patagonian Andes, the last recorded rainfall was in mid-November of 2025, according to the report. It adds that in early January, the region recorded 11 consecutive days of “extreme maximum temperatures”, marking the “second-longest warm spell in the past 65 years”.
Dr Juan Antonio Rivera, a researcher at the Argentine Institute of Snow Science, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, told a WWA press briefing that these weather conditions dried out vegetation and decreased soil moisture, which meant that the fires “found abundant fuel to continue over time”.
In the northern Patagonian Andes of Argentina, wildfires started on 6 January in Puerto Patriada and spread over two national parks of Los Alerces and Lago Puelo and nearby regions. These fires remained active into the first week of February.
The fires engulfed more than 45,000 hectares of native and planted forest, shrublands and grasslands, including 75% of native forests in the village of Epuyén, notes the study.
At least 47 homes were burned, according to El País. La Nación reported that many families evacuated themselves to prevent any damage.
In south-central Chile, wildfires occurred from 17 to 19 J[...]
The hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through Chile and Argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
This is according to a rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) service.
Devastating wildfires hit multiple parts of South America throughout January.
The fires claimed the lives of 23 people in Chile and displaced thousands of people and destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands in both Chile and Argentina.
The authors find that the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the “high fire danger” are expected to occur once every five years, but that these conditions would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change.
In today’s climate, rainfall intensity during the “fire season” is around 20-25% lower in the areas covered by the study than it would be in a world without human-caused emissions, the study adds.
Study author Prof Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:
“We’re confident in saying that the main driver of this increased fire risk is human-caused warming. These trends are projected to continue in the future as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels.”
‘Significant’ damage
The recent wildfires in Chile and Argentina have been “one of the most significant and damaging events in the region”, the report says.
In the lead-up to the fires, both countries were gripped by intense heatwaves and droughts.
The authors analysed two regions – one in central Chile and the other in Argentine Patagonia, along the border between Argentina and Chile.
For example, in Argentina’s northern Patagonian Andes, the last recorded rainfall was in mid-November of 2025, according to the report. It adds that in early January, the region recorded 11 consecutive days of “extreme maximum temperatures”, marking the “second-longest warm spell in the past 65 years”.
Dr Juan Antonio Rivera, a researcher at the Argentine Institute of Snow Science, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, told a WWA press briefing that these weather conditions dried out vegetation and decreased soil moisture, which meant that the fires “found abundant fuel to continue over time”.
In the northern Patagonian Andes of Argentina, wildfires started on 6 January in Puerto Patriada and spread over two national parks of Los Alerces and Lago Puelo and nearby regions. These fires remained active into the first week of February.
The fires engulfed more than 45,000 hectares of native and planted forest, shrublands and grasslands, including 75% of native forests in the village of Epuyén, notes the study.
At least 47 homes were burned, according to El País. La Nación reported that many families evacuated themselves to prevent any damage.
In south-central Chile, wildfires occurred from 17 to 19 J[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely The hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through Chile and Argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change.…
anuary, affecting the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.
They started near Concepción city, the capital of the Biobío region, where maximum temperatures reached 26C. In the nearby city of Chillán, temperatures reached 37C.
From there, the fires spread southwards to the coastal towns of Penco-Lirquen and Punta Parra, in the Biobío region.
The event left 23 people dead, 52,000 people displaced and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the country, according to the study.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/3DGRNED.jpg Inhabitants of Lirquen, in Chile, walk through the homes consumed by the flames in January 2026. Credit: UNAR Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.
These wildfires burnt more than 40,000 hectares of forests, “tripling the amount of land burned in 2025” across the country, reported La Tercera.
The study adds that more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including Monterey pine and Eucalyptus trees, were consumed by the blaze and critical infrastructure was affected.
A WWA press release points out that the expansion of non-native pines and invasive species “has created highly flammable landscapes in Chile”.
Hot, dry and windy
Wildfires are complex events that are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as atmospheric moisture, wind speed and fuel availability.
To assess the impact of climate change on wildfires, the authors chose a “fire weather” metric called the “hot dry windy index” (HDWI). This combines maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed.
While this metric does not include every component that could contribute to intense wildfires, such as land-use change and fuel load data, study author Dr Claire Barnes from Imperial College London told a press briefing that HDWI is “a very good predictor of short-term, extreme, dry, fire-prone conditions”.
The authors chose to analyse two separate regions. The first lies along the coast and the foothills of the Andes around the Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía regions in central Chile. The second sits across the Chilean and Argentine border in Patagonia.
These regions are shown on the map below, where red circles indicate the wildfires recorded in January 2026 and pink boxes represent the study areas.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-11_at_10.53.55-704x1024.png Location of forest fires in Chile and Argentina in January 2026 (red circles) and the study areas (pink boxes). Source: WWA (2026).
The authors also selected different time periods for the two study regions, to reflect the “different lengths of peak wildfire activity associated with the fires in each region”.
For the central Chilean study area, the authors focus their analysis on the two most severe days of HDWI, 17-18 January. For the Patagonian region, they focus on the most severe five-day period, which took place over 2-6 January.
To put the wildfire into its historical context, the authors a[...]
They started near Concepción city, the capital of the Biobío region, where maximum temperatures reached 26C. In the nearby city of Chillán, temperatures reached 37C.
From there, the fires spread southwards to the coastal towns of Penco-Lirquen and Punta Parra, in the Biobío region.
The event left 23 people dead, 52,000 people displaced and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the country, according to the study.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/3DGRNED.jpg Inhabitants of Lirquen, in Chile, walk through the homes consumed by the flames in January 2026. Credit: UNAR Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.
These wildfires burnt more than 40,000 hectares of forests, “tripling the amount of land burned in 2025” across the country, reported La Tercera.
The study adds that more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including Monterey pine and Eucalyptus trees, were consumed by the blaze and critical infrastructure was affected.
A WWA press release points out that the expansion of non-native pines and invasive species “has created highly flammable landscapes in Chile”.
Hot, dry and windy
Wildfires are complex events that are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as atmospheric moisture, wind speed and fuel availability.
To assess the impact of climate change on wildfires, the authors chose a “fire weather” metric called the “hot dry windy index” (HDWI). This combines maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed.
While this metric does not include every component that could contribute to intense wildfires, such as land-use change and fuel load data, study author Dr Claire Barnes from Imperial College London told a press briefing that HDWI is “a very good predictor of short-term, extreme, dry, fire-prone conditions”.
The authors chose to analyse two separate regions. The first lies along the coast and the foothills of the Andes around the Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía regions in central Chile. The second sits across the Chilean and Argentine border in Patagonia.
These regions are shown on the map below, where red circles indicate the wildfires recorded in January 2026 and pink boxes represent the study areas.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Screenshot_2026-02-11_at_10.53.55-704x1024.png Location of forest fires in Chile and Argentina in January 2026 (red circles) and the study areas (pink boxes). Source: WWA (2026).
The authors also selected different time periods for the two study regions, to reflect the “different lengths of peak wildfire activity associated with the fires in each region”.
For the central Chilean study area, the authors focus their analysis on the two most severe days of HDWI, 17-18 January. For the Patagonian region, they focus on the most severe five-day period, which took place over 2-6 January.
To put the wildfire into its historical context, the authors a[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
anuary, affecting the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions. They started near Concepción city, the capital of the Biobío region, where maximum temperatures reached 26C. In the nearby city of Chillán, temperatures reached 37C. From there, the fires spread…
nalyse data on temperature, wind and rainfall to assess how HDWI over the two regions has changed since the year 1980.
They find that in both study regions, the high HWDI recorded in January is not “particularly extreme” in today’s climate and would typically be expected roughly once every five years. However, they add that the event would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change, in which average global temperatures are 1.3C cooler.
The authors also use a combination of observations and climate models to carry out an “attribution” analysis, comparing the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
They find that climate change made the high HDWI 2.5-times more likely in the central Chilean region and three-times more likely in the Patagonian region.
The authors also conduct analysis focused solely on November-January rainfall.
Both study regions experienced “very low rainfall” in the months leading up to the fires, the authors say. They find that fire-season rainfall intensity is around 25% lower in the central Chilean region and 20% lower in the Patagonia region in today’s climate than it would have been in a world without climate change.
Finally, the authors considered the influence of climatic cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon that affects global temperatures and regional weather patterns.
They find that a combination of La Niña – the “cool” phase of ENSO – combined with another natural cycle called the Southern Annular Mode, led to atmospheric circulation patterns that “favoured the hot and dry conditions that enhanced fire persistence and severity in parts of the region”.
However, they add that this has a comparably small effect on the overall intensity of the wildfires, with climate change standing out as the main driver.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Vulnerable communities
The wildfires affected native forests, national parks and small rural and tourist communities in both countries.
A 2025 study conducted in Chile, cited in the WWA analysis, found that 74% of survey respondents did not have appropriate education and awareness on wildfires.
This suggests that insufficient preparedness on early warning signs, response measures and prevention can “exacerbate the severity and frequency of these events”, the WWA authors say.
Aynur Kadihasanoglu, senior urban specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said in the WWA press release that many settlements in Chile are close to flammable pine plantations, which “puts lives and livelihoods at risk”.
Additionally, the head of Chile’s National Forest Corporation pointed to “structural shortcomings” in fire prevention, such as lack of regulation in lands without management plans, reported BioBioChile.
In [...]
They find that in both study regions, the high HWDI recorded in January is not “particularly extreme” in today’s climate and would typically be expected roughly once every five years. However, they add that the event would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change, in which average global temperatures are 1.3C cooler.
The authors also use a combination of observations and climate models to carry out an “attribution” analysis, comparing the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
They find that climate change made the high HDWI 2.5-times more likely in the central Chilean region and three-times more likely in the Patagonian region.
The authors also conduct analysis focused solely on November-January rainfall.
Both study regions experienced “very low rainfall” in the months leading up to the fires, the authors say. They find that fire-season rainfall intensity is around 25% lower in the central Chilean region and 20% lower in the Patagonia region in today’s climate than it would have been in a world without climate change.
Finally, the authors considered the influence of climatic cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon that affects global temperatures and regional weather patterns.
They find that a combination of La Niña – the “cool” phase of ENSO – combined with another natural cycle called the Southern Annular Mode, led to atmospheric circulation patterns that “favoured the hot and dry conditions that enhanced fire persistence and severity in parts of the region”.
However, they add that this has a comparably small effect on the overall intensity of the wildfires, with climate change standing out as the main driver.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Vulnerable communities
The wildfires affected native forests, national parks and small rural and tourist communities in both countries.
A 2025 study conducted in Chile, cited in the WWA analysis, found that 74% of survey respondents did not have appropriate education and awareness on wildfires.
This suggests that insufficient preparedness on early warning signs, response measures and prevention can “exacerbate the severity and frequency of these events”, the WWA authors say.
Aynur Kadihasanoglu, senior urban specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said in the WWA press release that many settlements in Chile are close to flammable pine plantations, which “puts lives and livelihoods at risk”.
Additionally, the head of Chile’s National Forest Corporation pointed to “structural shortcomings” in fire prevention, such as lack of regulation in lands without management plans, reported BioBioChile.
In [...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
nalyse data on temperature, wind and rainfall to assess how HDWI over the two regions has changed since the year 1980. They find that in both study regions, the high HWDI recorded in January is not “particularly extreme” in today’s climate and would typically…
Argentina, the response to the fires has been hampered by large budget cuts and reductions in forest rangers, according to the WWA press release. Experts have criticised Argentina’s self-styled “liberal-libertarian” president Javier Milei for the cuts and the delay to declaring a state of emergency in Patagonia.
According to the Associated Press, “Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80% in 2024 compared to the previous year”. The service “faces another 71% reduction in funds” in its 2026 budget, the newswire adds.
Argentinian native forests and grasslands are experiencing “intense pressure” from wildfires, according to the study. Many vulnerable native animal species, such as the huemul and the pudú, are losing critical habitat, while birds, such as the Patagonian black woodpecker, are losing nesting sites.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/FPTX51.jpg Huemul deer in Argentine Patagonia, one of the vulnerable animal species to wildfires in the region. Credit: Bernardo Galmarini / Alamy Stock Photo.
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/3DH6ETB-300x200.jpg
Climate change and La Niña made ‘devastating’ southern African floods more intense
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<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GG7360-300x200.jpg
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16.10.25
The post Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief Staff
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61204
Nature Climate on Telegram by @NatureClimateTelegram
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According to the Associated Press, “Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80% in 2024 compared to the previous year”. The service “faces another 71% reduction in funds” in its 2026 budget, the newswire adds.
Argentinian native forests and grasslands are experiencing “intense pressure” from wildfires, according to the study. Many vulnerable native animal species, such as the huemul and the pudú, are losing critical habitat, while birds, such as the Patagonian black woodpecker, are losing nesting sites.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/FPTX51.jpg Huemul deer in Argentine Patagonia, one of the vulnerable animal species to wildfires in the region. Credit: Bernardo Galmarini / Alamy Stock Photo.
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/3DH6ETB-300x200.jpg
Climate change and La Niña made ‘devastating’ southern African floods more intense
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29.01.26
<picturehttps://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GG7360-300x200.jpg
Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?
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Global wildfires burned an area of land larger than India in 2024
Land and soils
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16.10.25
The post Climate change made ‘fire weather’ in Chile and Argentina three times more likely appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Carbon Brief Staff
Source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/?p=61204
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IPBES chair Dr David Obura: Trump’s US exit from global nature panel ‘harms everybody’
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the intergovernmental science panel for nature “harms everybody, including them”, according to its chair.
Dr David Obura is a leading coral reef ecologist from Kenya and chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s authority on the science of nature decline.
In January, Donald Trump announced intentions to withdraw the US from IPBES, along with 65 other international organisations, including the UN climate science panel and its climate treaty.
In an interview with Carbon Brief, Obura says the warming that humans have already caused means “coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point” and that it is now inevitable that Earth “will lose what we have called coral reefs”.
A global goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 will not be possible to achieve for every ecosystem, he continues, noting that a lack of action from countries means “we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point”.
Despite this, it is still possible to reverse the “enabling drivers” of biodiversity decline within the next four years, he adds, warning that leaders must act as “our economies and societies fully depend on nature”.
The interview was conducted at the sidelines of an IPBES meeting in Manchester, UK, where governments agreed to a new report detailing how the “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling biodiversity decline and putting the global economy at risk.
* On US leaving IPBES: “Any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves.”
* On reversing nature loss by 2030: “We won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point.”
* On the value of biodiversity: “Nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature.”
* On coral reefs: “We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point.”
* On nature justice: “The places that are most vulnerable don’t have the income, or the assets, to conserve biodiversity.”
* On IPBES’s latest report: “One of the key findings is all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.”
* On the next UN nature summit: “We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.”
Carbon Brief: Last month Trump announced plans for the US to exit IPBES and dozens of other global organisations. You described this at the time as “deeply disappointing”. What are your thoughts on the decision now and what will be the main impacts of the US leaving IPBES?
David Obura: Well, part of the reason that I’ve come to IPBES is because, of course, I believe in the multilateral process, because we bring 150 countries together, we’re part of the UN and the multilateral system and we’re based on knowledge [that provides] inputs to policymaking. We have a conceptual framework that looks from the bottom up on how people depend on nature. I’m also doing a lot of science on Earth systems at the planetary level, how our footprint is exceeding the scale of the planet. We have to make decisions together. We need the multilateral system to work to help facilitate that. It has never be[...]
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the intergovernmental science panel for nature “harms everybody, including them”, according to its chair.
Dr David Obura is a leading coral reef ecologist from Kenya and chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s authority on the science of nature decline.
In January, Donald Trump announced intentions to withdraw the US from IPBES, along with 65 other international organisations, including the UN climate science panel and its climate treaty.
In an interview with Carbon Brief, Obura says the warming that humans have already caused means “coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point” and that it is now inevitable that Earth “will lose what we have called coral reefs”.
A global goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 will not be possible to achieve for every ecosystem, he continues, noting that a lack of action from countries means “we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point”.
Despite this, it is still possible to reverse the “enabling drivers” of biodiversity decline within the next four years, he adds, warning that leaders must act as “our economies and societies fully depend on nature”.
The interview was conducted at the sidelines of an IPBES meeting in Manchester, UK, where governments agreed to a new report detailing how the “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling biodiversity decline and putting the global economy at risk.
* On US leaving IPBES: “Any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves.”
* On reversing nature loss by 2030: “We won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point.”
* On the value of biodiversity: “Nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature.”
* On coral reefs: “We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point.”
* On nature justice: “The places that are most vulnerable don’t have the income, or the assets, to conserve biodiversity.”
* On IPBES’s latest report: “One of the key findings is all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.”
* On the next UN nature summit: “We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.”
Carbon Brief: Last month Trump announced plans for the US to exit IPBES and dozens of other global organisations. You described this at the time as “deeply disappointing”. What are your thoughts on the decision now and what will be the main impacts of the US leaving IPBES?
David Obura: Well, part of the reason that I’ve come to IPBES is because, of course, I believe in the multilateral process, because we bring 150 countries together, we’re part of the UN and the multilateral system and we’re based on knowledge [that provides] inputs to policymaking. We have a conceptual framework that looks from the bottom up on how people depend on nature. I’m also doing a lot of science on Earth systems at the planetary level, how our footprint is exceeding the scale of the planet. We have to make decisions together. We need the multilateral system to work to help facilitate that. It has never be[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
IPBES chair Dr David Obura: Trump’s US exit from global nature panel ‘harms everybody’ The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the intergovernmental science panel for nature “harms everybody, including them”, according to its chair. Dr…
en perfect. Of course, I come from a region [Kenya] that hasn’t been, you know, powerful in the multilateral process.
But we need countries to come together, so any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves. It’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing, so that, over time, hopefully [the US will] rejoin. Because, in the end, we will really need that to happen.
CB: This is the first IPBES meeting since Trump made the announcement. Has it had an impact so far on these proceedings and is there any kind of US presence here?
DO: This plenary is like every plenary that we have had. The current members are here. Some members are not. And, of course, we have some states here as observers working out if they’re going to join or not. And then we have a lot of private sector observers and universities and so on. The impact of a country leaving – the US in this case – has no impact on the plenary itself, because they’re not here making decisions on the things that we do.
We, of course, don’t have US government members attending in technical areas, but we do have institutions and universities and academics here attending as they have in the past. So, in that sense, the plenary goes on as it goes on – the science and the knowledge is the same. The decision-making processes we have here are the same. And, as I said earlier, what has an impact is the actual action that takes place afterwards, because a lot of the recommendations that we make are based on enabling conditions that governments put in place, to bring in place sustainability actions and so on. When governments are not doing that, especially major economic drivers, then the whole system suffers.
CB: When you were appointed as chair of IPBES more than two years ago, you said that your aim was to strengthen cohesion and impact and also get the findings of IPBES in front of more people. So how would you rate your progress on this now that it’s been about a couple of years?
DO: Well, like any intergovernmental process, we have a certain amount of inertia in what we do and it takes a few years to consult on topics for assessments and then to do them and to improve them and get them out.
One of the main things we’re discussing right now is we have had a rolling work programme from when IPBES started until 2030 and we need to decide on the last few deliverables and how we work in that period. We are asking for a mandate to spend the next year really considering the multiple options that we have in proposing a way forward for the last few years of this work programme. I feel that the countries are very aligned. We have done a lot of work, produced a lot of outputs. It is challenging for governments and other stakeholders to read our assessments and reach into them to find what’s useful to them. They make constant calls for more support, in uptake, in capacity building and in policy support.
The second global assessment in 2028 will be our 17th assessment [overall]. We would like to focus on really bringing all this knowledge together across assessments in ways that are relevant to different governments, different stakeholder groups, different networks to help them reach into the knowledge that’s in the assessments. And I think the governments, of course, want that as well, because many of them are calling for it. Many of the governments that support us financially, of course, want to see a return of investment on the money that they have put in.
CB: Nations agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Back in 2023 we had a conve[...]
But we need countries to come together, so any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves. It’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing, so that, over time, hopefully [the US will] rejoin. Because, in the end, we will really need that to happen.
CB: This is the first IPBES meeting since Trump made the announcement. Has it had an impact so far on these proceedings and is there any kind of US presence here?
DO: This plenary is like every plenary that we have had. The current members are here. Some members are not. And, of course, we have some states here as observers working out if they’re going to join or not. And then we have a lot of private sector observers and universities and so on. The impact of a country leaving – the US in this case – has no impact on the plenary itself, because they’re not here making decisions on the things that we do.
We, of course, don’t have US government members attending in technical areas, but we do have institutions and universities and academics here attending as they have in the past. So, in that sense, the plenary goes on as it goes on – the science and the knowledge is the same. The decision-making processes we have here are the same. And, as I said earlier, what has an impact is the actual action that takes place afterwards, because a lot of the recommendations that we make are based on enabling conditions that governments put in place, to bring in place sustainability actions and so on. When governments are not doing that, especially major economic drivers, then the whole system suffers.
CB: When you were appointed as chair of IPBES more than two years ago, you said that your aim was to strengthen cohesion and impact and also get the findings of IPBES in front of more people. So how would you rate your progress on this now that it’s been about a couple of years?
DO: Well, like any intergovernmental process, we have a certain amount of inertia in what we do and it takes a few years to consult on topics for assessments and then to do them and to improve them and get them out.
One of the main things we’re discussing right now is we have had a rolling work programme from when IPBES started until 2030 and we need to decide on the last few deliverables and how we work in that period. We are asking for a mandate to spend the next year really considering the multiple options that we have in proposing a way forward for the last few years of this work programme. I feel that the countries are very aligned. We have done a lot of work, produced a lot of outputs. It is challenging for governments and other stakeholders to read our assessments and reach into them to find what’s useful to them. They make constant calls for more support, in uptake, in capacity building and in policy support.
The second global assessment in 2028 will be our 17th assessment [overall]. We would like to focus on really bringing all this knowledge together across assessments in ways that are relevant to different governments, different stakeholder groups, different networks to help them reach into the knowledge that’s in the assessments. And I think the governments, of course, want that as well, because many of them are calling for it. Many of the governments that support us financially, of course, want to see a return of investment on the money that they have put in.
CB: Nations agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Back in 2023 we had a conve[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
en perfect. Of course, I come from a region [Kenya] that hasn’t been, you know, powerful in the multilateral process. But we need countries to come together, so any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves. It’s very important…
rsation for Carbon Brief and you said that you were “highly doubtful” this goal could be achieved for every ecosystem by that date. Where do you stand on this now?
DO: I work on coral reefs and part of the reason I’ve come to IPBES platform is because the amount of climate change we’re committed to with current fossil fuel emissions and the focus on economic growth means that corals will continue to decline 20, 30, 40 years into the future. I think of that there’s no real doubt. The question is how soon we put in place the right actions to halt climate change. That will then have a lag on how long it takes for corals to cope with that amount of climate change.
We can’t halt and reverse the decline of every ecosystem. But we can try and bend the curve to halt and reverse the drivers of decline. So, that’s some of the economic drivers that we talk about in the nexus and transformative change assessment, the indirect drivers and the value shifts we need to have. What the Global Biodiversity Framework [GBF, a global nature agreement made in 2022] aspires to do in terms of halting and reversing biodiversity decline – we absolutely need to do that. We can do it and we can put in place the enabling conditions for that by 2030 for sure. But we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point to halt [the loss of] all ecosystems.
We’re now in 2026, so this is three years plus after the GBF was adopted. We still need greater action from all countries and all stakeholders and businesses and so on. That’s what we’re really pushing for in our assessments.
CB: Biodiversity loss has historically been underappreciated by world leaders. As the world continues to be gripped by geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and financial pressures, what are your thoughts on the chances of leaders addressing the issue of biodiversity loss in a meaningful way?
DO: What are the chances of addressing biodiversity loss? I mean, we have to do it. It’s really our life support system and if we only focus on immediate crises and threats and don’t pay attention to the long-term threats and crises, that only creates more short-term crises down the line, we make it harder and harder to do that. I hope that what I’m hoping we get to understand better through IPBES science, as well as others, is that we’re not just reporting on the state of biodiversity because it’s nice to have it, but it’s [because] diversity of nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature. If we want them to prosper and be secure into the long-term future, we have to learn how to bring the impact and dependencies of business, which is a focus of this assessment, in line with nature. And until we do that, we will just continue to magnify the potential for future crises and their impacts.
CB: You mentioned already that your expertise is in coral reefs. A report last year warned that the world has reached its first climate tipping point, that of widespread dying of warm water coral reefs. Do you agree with that statement and can you discuss the wider state of coral reefs across the world at this present moment?
DO: The report that came out last year in 2025 was a global tipping point report and it’s actually in 2023 the first one of those [was published]. I was involved in that one and we basically took what the IPCC [<a href='https://www.ip[...]
DO: I work on coral reefs and part of the reason I’ve come to IPBES platform is because the amount of climate change we’re committed to with current fossil fuel emissions and the focus on economic growth means that corals will continue to decline 20, 30, 40 years into the future. I think of that there’s no real doubt. The question is how soon we put in place the right actions to halt climate change. That will then have a lag on how long it takes for corals to cope with that amount of climate change.
We can’t halt and reverse the decline of every ecosystem. But we can try and bend the curve to halt and reverse the drivers of decline. So, that’s some of the economic drivers that we talk about in the nexus and transformative change assessment, the indirect drivers and the value shifts we need to have. What the Global Biodiversity Framework [GBF, a global nature agreement made in 2022] aspires to do in terms of halting and reversing biodiversity decline – we absolutely need to do that. We can do it and we can put in place the enabling conditions for that by 2030 for sure. But we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point to halt [the loss of] all ecosystems.
We’re now in 2026, so this is three years plus after the GBF was adopted. We still need greater action from all countries and all stakeholders and businesses and so on. That’s what we’re really pushing for in our assessments.
CB: Biodiversity loss has historically been underappreciated by world leaders. As the world continues to be gripped by geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and financial pressures, what are your thoughts on the chances of leaders addressing the issue of biodiversity loss in a meaningful way?
DO: What are the chances of addressing biodiversity loss? I mean, we have to do it. It’s really our life support system and if we only focus on immediate crises and threats and don’t pay attention to the long-term threats and crises, that only creates more short-term crises down the line, we make it harder and harder to do that. I hope that what I’m hoping we get to understand better through IPBES science, as well as others, is that we’re not just reporting on the state of biodiversity because it’s nice to have it, but it’s [because] diversity of nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature. If we want them to prosper and be secure into the long-term future, we have to learn how to bring the impact and dependencies of business, which is a focus of this assessment, in line with nature. And until we do that, we will just continue to magnify the potential for future crises and their impacts.
CB: You mentioned already that your expertise is in coral reefs. A report last year warned that the world has reached its first climate tipping point, that of widespread dying of warm water coral reefs. Do you agree with that statement and can you discuss the wider state of coral reefs across the world at this present moment?
DO: The report that came out last year in 2025 was a global tipping point report and it’s actually in 2023 the first one of those [was published]. I was involved in that one and we basically took what the IPCC [<a href='https://www.ip[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
rsation for Carbon Brief and you said that you were “highly doubtful” this goal could be achieved for every ecosystem by that date. Where do you stand on this now? DO: I work on coral reefs and part of the reason I’ve come to IPBES platform is because the…
cc.ch/'>Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has produced, which [is] compiled from the [scientific] literature [which said] that 1.5-2C was the critical range for coral reefs, where you go from losing 70-90% to 90-99% of coral reefs around the world. [It is] a bit hard to say exactly what that means. What we did was we actually reduced that range from 1.5C-2C to 1-1.5C, based on observations we’ve already made about loss of corals. In 2024, the world was 1.5C above historical conditions for one year. The IPCC number requires a 20-year average [for 1.5C to be crossed]. So, we’re not quite at the IPCC limit, but we’re very close. Also, with not putting in place fast enough emission reductions, warming will continue.
Coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point. And, so, I do agree with the statement. It means that we lose the fully connected regional, global system that coral reefs have been in the past. There will still be some coral reefs in places that have some natural protection mechanisms, whether it’s oceanographic or some levels of sedimentation in green water from rivers can help. And there’s resilience of corals as well. Some corals will be able to adapt somewhat, but not all – and not all the other species too. We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point. We’ll still continue to have simpler coral ecosystems into the future, but they won’t be quite the same.
It is a crisis point and my hope is that, in coming out from the coral reef world, I can communicate that this is, this has been a crisis for coral reefs. It’s a very important ecosystem, but we don’t want it to happen to more and more and more ecosystems that support more [than] hundreds of millions and billions of people as well. Because, if we let things go that far, then, of course, we have much bigger crises on our hands.
CB: Something else you’ve spoken about before is around equity being one of the big challenges when it comes to responding to biodiversity loss. Can you explain why you think that biodiversity loss should be seen as a justice issue?
DO: Well, biodiversity loss is a justice issue because we are a part of biodiversity and – just like the loss of ecosystems and habitats and species – people live locally as well. People experience biodiversity loss in their surroundings.
The places that are most vulnerable and don’t have the income, or the assets, to either conserve biodiversity, or need to rely on it too much so they degrade it – they feel the impacts of that loss much more directly than those who do have more assets. Also, the more assets you have, the more you can import biodiversity products and benefits from somewhere else.
So, it’s very much a justice issue, both from local levels experiencing it directly, but then also at global levels. We are part of it [biodiversity], we don’t own it. It’s a global good, or a common public good, so we need to be preserving it for all people on the planet. In that sense, there are many, many justice issues that are involved in both loss of biodiversity and how you deal with that as well.
CB: How would you say IPBES is working towards achieving greater equity in biodiversity science?
DO: One of the headline findings of our values assessment in 2022, which looked at multiple values different cultures have and different worldviews around the planet, [was that] by accommodating or considering different worldviews and different perspectives, you achieve greater equity because you’re already considering other worldviews in making decisions.
So, that’s an important first step – just making it much more apparent and upfront that we c[...]
Coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point. And, so, I do agree with the statement. It means that we lose the fully connected regional, global system that coral reefs have been in the past. There will still be some coral reefs in places that have some natural protection mechanisms, whether it’s oceanographic or some levels of sedimentation in green water from rivers can help. And there’s resilience of corals as well. Some corals will be able to adapt somewhat, but not all – and not all the other species too. We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point. We’ll still continue to have simpler coral ecosystems into the future, but they won’t be quite the same.
It is a crisis point and my hope is that, in coming out from the coral reef world, I can communicate that this is, this has been a crisis for coral reefs. It’s a very important ecosystem, but we don’t want it to happen to more and more and more ecosystems that support more [than] hundreds of millions and billions of people as well. Because, if we let things go that far, then, of course, we have much bigger crises on our hands.
CB: Something else you’ve spoken about before is around equity being one of the big challenges when it comes to responding to biodiversity loss. Can you explain why you think that biodiversity loss should be seen as a justice issue?
DO: Well, biodiversity loss is a justice issue because we are a part of biodiversity and – just like the loss of ecosystems and habitats and species – people live locally as well. People experience biodiversity loss in their surroundings.
The places that are most vulnerable and don’t have the income, or the assets, to either conserve biodiversity, or need to rely on it too much so they degrade it – they feel the impacts of that loss much more directly than those who do have more assets. Also, the more assets you have, the more you can import biodiversity products and benefits from somewhere else.
So, it’s very much a justice issue, both from local levels experiencing it directly, but then also at global levels. We are part of it [biodiversity], we don’t own it. It’s a global good, or a common public good, so we need to be preserving it for all people on the planet. In that sense, there are many, many justice issues that are involved in both loss of biodiversity and how you deal with that as well.
CB: How would you say IPBES is working towards achieving greater equity in biodiversity science?
DO: One of the headline findings of our values assessment in 2022, which looked at multiple values different cultures have and different worldviews around the planet, [was that] by accommodating or considering different worldviews and different perspectives, you achieve greater equity because you’re already considering other worldviews in making decisions.
So, that’s an important first step – just making it much more apparent and upfront that we c[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
cc.ch/'>Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has produced, which [is] compiled from the [scientific] literature [which said] that 1.5-2C was the critical range for coral reefs, where you go from losing 70-90% to 90-99% of coral reefs around the world.…
an’t just make decisions, especially global ones, from a single worldview and the dominant one is the market economic worldview that we have. That’s very important.
But, then, also in how we do our assessments and the knowledge systems that are incorporated in them. We integrate different knowledge systems together and try and juxtapose – or if they can be integrated, we do that, sometimes you can’t – but you just need to illustrate different worldviews and perspectives on the common issue of biodiversity loss or livelihoods or something like that.
We hope that our conceptual framework and our values framework really help bring in this awareness of multiple cultures and multiple perspectives in the multilateral system.
CB: When this interview is published, IPBES will have released its report on business and biodiversity. What are some of the key takeaways from this?
DO: Our assessments integrate so much information that the key messages are actually, in retrospect, quite obvious in a way. One of the key findings it will say is that all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.
Of course, when you think about it, of course they do. We often think, “oh, well ecotourism is dependent on nature”, but even a supermarket is dependent on nature because a lot of the produce comes from a natural system somewhere, maybe in a greenhouse or enhanced by fertiliser, but it still comes from natural systems. Any other business will have either impacts on the nature around it, or it needs tree shade outside so people can walk in and things like that.
So, that’s one of the main findings. It’s not just certain sectors that need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts. All sectors need to. Another finding, of course, is that it’s very differentiated depending on the type of business and type of sector.
It’s also very differentiated in different parts of the world in terms of responsibilities and also capabilities. So small businesses, of course, have much less leeway, perhaps, to change what they’re doing, whereas big businesses do and they have more assets, so they can deal with shifts and changes much better.
It’s a methodological assessment, rather than assessing the state of businesses, or the state of nature in relation to businesses [and] they pull together a huge list of methodologies and tools and things that businesses can access and do to understand their impacts and dependencies and act on them. Then [there is] also guidance and advice for governments on how to enable businesses to do that with the right incentives and regulations and so on. In that sense, it helps bring knowledge together into a single place.
It has been fantastic to see the parallel programme that the UK government has organised [at the IPBES meeting in Manchester]. It has brought together a huge range of British businesses and consultancies and so on that help businesses understand their impacts on nature. There’s a huge thirst.
To some extent, I would have thought, with so much capacity already in some of these organisations, what would they learn from our assessments? But they’re really hungry to see the integration. They really want to see that this really does make a big difference, that others will do the same, that the government will really support moving in these directions. There’s a huge amount of effort in the findings coming out and I’m sure that that will be felt all around the world and in different countries in different ways.
CB: As we’re speaking now, you’re still in the midst of figuring out exactly what the report will say and going through line-by-line to figure this out. Something we’ve seen at other negotiations…has been these entrenched views from countries on certain key issues. And one thing I did notice in the <a href='https://enb.iisd.org/intergovernmental-science-policy-platform-biodiversity-ecosystem-servic[...]
But, then, also in how we do our assessments and the knowledge systems that are incorporated in them. We integrate different knowledge systems together and try and juxtapose – or if they can be integrated, we do that, sometimes you can’t – but you just need to illustrate different worldviews and perspectives on the common issue of biodiversity loss or livelihoods or something like that.
We hope that our conceptual framework and our values framework really help bring in this awareness of multiple cultures and multiple perspectives in the multilateral system.
CB: When this interview is published, IPBES will have released its report on business and biodiversity. What are some of the key takeaways from this?
DO: Our assessments integrate so much information that the key messages are actually, in retrospect, quite obvious in a way. One of the key findings it will say is that all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.
Of course, when you think about it, of course they do. We often think, “oh, well ecotourism is dependent on nature”, but even a supermarket is dependent on nature because a lot of the produce comes from a natural system somewhere, maybe in a greenhouse or enhanced by fertiliser, but it still comes from natural systems. Any other business will have either impacts on the nature around it, or it needs tree shade outside so people can walk in and things like that.
So, that’s one of the main findings. It’s not just certain sectors that need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts. All sectors need to. Another finding, of course, is that it’s very differentiated depending on the type of business and type of sector.
It’s also very differentiated in different parts of the world in terms of responsibilities and also capabilities. So small businesses, of course, have much less leeway, perhaps, to change what they’re doing, whereas big businesses do and they have more assets, so they can deal with shifts and changes much better.
It’s a methodological assessment, rather than assessing the state of businesses, or the state of nature in relation to businesses [and] they pull together a huge list of methodologies and tools and things that businesses can access and do to understand their impacts and dependencies and act on them. Then [there is] also guidance and advice for governments on how to enable businesses to do that with the right incentives and regulations and so on. In that sense, it helps bring knowledge together into a single place.
It has been fantastic to see the parallel programme that the UK government has organised [at the IPBES meeting in Manchester]. It has brought together a huge range of British businesses and consultancies and so on that help businesses understand their impacts on nature. There’s a huge thirst.
To some extent, I would have thought, with so much capacity already in some of these organisations, what would they learn from our assessments? But they’re really hungry to see the integration. They really want to see that this really does make a big difference, that others will do the same, that the government will really support moving in these directions. There’s a huge amount of effort in the findings coming out and I’m sure that that will be felt all around the world and in different countries in different ways.
CB: As we’re speaking now, you’re still in the midst of figuring out exactly what the report will say and going through line-by-line to figure this out. Something we’ve seen at other negotiations…has been these entrenched views from countries on certain key issues. And one thing I did notice in the <a href='https://enb.iisd.org/intergovernmental-science-policy-platform-biodiversity-ecosystem-servic[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
an’t just make decisions, especially global ones, from a single worldview and the dominant one is the market economic worldview that we have. That’s very important. But, then, also in how we do our assessments and the knowledge systems that are incorporated…
es-ipbes12-daily-report-4feb2026'>Earth Negotiations Bulletin discussion of yesterday’s [4 February] negotiations was that it said that some delegations wanted to remove mentions of climate change from the report. Has this been a key sticking point here or have there been any difficulties from countries during these negotiations?
DO: The nature of these multilateral negotiations is that the science is, in a way, a central body of work that is built through consensus of bringing all this knowledge together. It’s almost like a centralising process. And, yes, different countries have different perspectives on what their priorities are and the messages they want to see or not.
We still, of course, deal with different positions from countries. What we hope to do is to be able to convene it so that we see that we serve the countries best by having the most unbiased reporting of what the science is saying in language that is accessible to and useful to policymakers, rather than not having language or not having mention of things in in the agreed text.
How it’ll work out, I don’t know. Each time is different from the others. I think one of the key things that’s really important for us is that you do have different governance tracks on different aspects of the world we deal in. So, the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals, as well [as negotiations] on climate change – the UNFCCC, the climate convention, is the governing body for that. There’s two goals on nature – the Convention on Biological Diversity and other multilateral agreements are the institutions that govern that part.
We have come from a nature-based perspective, with nature’s contributions to a good quality of life for people…We start in the nature goals, but we actually have content that relates to all the other goals. We need to consider climate impacts on nature, or climate impacts on people that affect how they use nature. The nexus assessment was, in a way, a mini SDG report. It looked at six different Sustainable Development Goals.
We try and make sure that while on the institutional mechanisms, certain countries may try and want us to report within our mandate on nature, we do have findings that relate to climate change that relate to income and poverty and food production and health systems [and] that we need to report [outwardly] so that people are aware of those and they can use those in decision-making contexts.
That’s a difficult discussion and every time it comes out a little bit differently. But we hope we move the agenda further towards 2030 in the SDGs. We have an indivisible system that we need to report on.
CB: The next UN biodiversity summit COP17 is taking place later this year. What are the main outcomes you’re hoping to see at that summit?
DO: The main outcomes I would hope to see from the biodiversity summit is greater alignment across the countries. We really need to move forward on delivering on the GBF as part of the sustainable development agenda as well. So there will be a review of progress. We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.
That means, of course, addressing all of the targets in the GBF. Not equally, necessarily, but they all need progress to support one another in the whole. We work to provide the science inputs that can help deliver that through the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] mechanisms as well. We hope they use our assessments to the fullest and that we see good progress coming out.
CB: Great, thank you very much for your time.
<picture<a href='https://www.carbonbrief.org/prof-ben-santer-trump-administration-is-embracing-ignor[...]
DO: The nature of these multilateral negotiations is that the science is, in a way, a central body of work that is built through consensus of bringing all this knowledge together. It’s almost like a centralising process. And, yes, different countries have different perspectives on what their priorities are and the messages they want to see or not.
We still, of course, deal with different positions from countries. What we hope to do is to be able to convene it so that we see that we serve the countries best by having the most unbiased reporting of what the science is saying in language that is accessible to and useful to policymakers, rather than not having language or not having mention of things in in the agreed text.
How it’ll work out, I don’t know. Each time is different from the others. I think one of the key things that’s really important for us is that you do have different governance tracks on different aspects of the world we deal in. So, the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals, as well [as negotiations] on climate change – the UNFCCC, the climate convention, is the governing body for that. There’s two goals on nature – the Convention on Biological Diversity and other multilateral agreements are the institutions that govern that part.
We have come from a nature-based perspective, with nature’s contributions to a good quality of life for people…We start in the nature goals, but we actually have content that relates to all the other goals. We need to consider climate impacts on nature, or climate impacts on people that affect how they use nature. The nexus assessment was, in a way, a mini SDG report. It looked at six different Sustainable Development Goals.
We try and make sure that while on the institutional mechanisms, certain countries may try and want us to report within our mandate on nature, we do have findings that relate to climate change that relate to income and poverty and food production and health systems [and] that we need to report [outwardly] so that people are aware of those and they can use those in decision-making contexts.
That’s a difficult discussion and every time it comes out a little bit differently. But we hope we move the agenda further towards 2030 in the SDGs. We have an indivisible system that we need to report on.
CB: The next UN biodiversity summit COP17 is taking place later this year. What are the main outcomes you’re hoping to see at that summit?
DO: The main outcomes I would hope to see from the biodiversity summit is greater alignment across the countries. We really need to move forward on delivering on the GBF as part of the sustainable development agenda as well. So there will be a review of progress. We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.
That means, of course, addressing all of the targets in the GBF. Not equally, necessarily, but they all need progress to support one another in the whole. We work to provide the science inputs that can help deliver that through the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] mechanisms as well. We hope they use our assessments to the fullest and that we see good progress coming out.
CB: Great, thank you very much for your time.
<picture<a href='https://www.carbonbrief.org/prof-ben-santer-trump-administration-is-embracing-ignor[...]
Nature Climate Change by Springer Science Journal and Carbon Brief on Telegram by GRT : Pubmedgram , Pubmed on Tg
es-ipbes12-daily-report-4feb2026'>Earth Negotiations Bulletin discussion of yesterday’s [4 February] negotiations was that it said that some delegations wanted to remove mentions of climate change from the report. Has this been a key sticking point here or…
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The post IPBES chair Dr David Obura: Trump’s US exit from global nature panel ‘harms everybody’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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