Preliminary text – resource under development

The co-benefits approach refers to integrated efforts to address climate change mitigation while meeting development needs in developing countries. It aims to help developing countries to increase their ownership of such efforts while achieving tangible development benefits.

The Ministry of Environment, Japan, has developed various tools for co-benefits projects including a good practice matrix and catalogue for identifying such projects as well as a manual for quantitative evaluation of the co-benefits approach to climate change projects (http://www.kyomecha.org/cobene/e/tools.html).

How can biodiversity and climate co-benefits best be secured?

Climate change both affects, and is affected by biodiversity. But the links often go unrecognised. Diversity confers far greater resilience on natural systems, thus reducing their vulnerability – and the vulnerability of the people that depend upon them – to climate change. Yet climate adaptation and mitigation strategies that are blind to biodiversity can undermine this natural and social resilience. Ignoring the links between biodiversity and climate risks exacerbates the problems associated with climate change and represents a missed opportunity for maximising co-benefits (see http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=11062IIED).

At the international level, the links between climate change and biodiversity are well recognised. Within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (www.unfcc.int). Article 2 emphasises that stabilization levels should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally; while in Article 4.1 states that all Parties commit themselves to protecting sinks and reservoirs. The Kyoto Protocol (http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php) also refers to the importance of ensuring that carbon sequestration activities contribute to the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (www.cbd.int), but does not explicitly exclude practices that have negative biodiversity impacts. The 8th CoP of the Ramsar Convention (www.ramsar.org) in 2002 called on parties to “take action to minimize the degradation as well as promote the restoration of those peatlands and other wetland types that are significant carbon stores” while the 7th CoP of the CBD (2004) encouraged Parties to “take measures to manage ecosystems so as to maintain their resilience extreme climate events and to help mitigate and adapt to climate change”.

Turning policy statements into practice, however, means adopting a mix of approaches:

• Controlling temperature increases to avoid ecological damage;
• Addressing the negative impacts of climate change strategies on biodiversity;
• Identifying opportunities for adopting biodiversity-friendly adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The first approach implies a significant reduction in emissions – over and above that required under the Kyoto Protocol. Given the political difficulties in agreeing existing emissions reductions, the probability of implementing stricter measures is very low. This implies even greater attention to the second and third approaches.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (http://cdm.unfccc.int/index.html) currently provides for carbon sequestration through afforestation and reforestation activities. Positive biodiversity impacts can be achieved if these activities take place on previously degraded lands and are based on natural regeneration and native species but not if native grasslands are converted to fast growing monocultures. Avoided deforestation is likely to provide the greatest biodiversity benefits but is not currently included within the CDM. A large-scale push towards bio-fuels is also likely to pose problems for biodiversity if it results in land clearance rather than occupying previously degraded land.

Many countries are now developing national policies and plans for adaptation, and it is probably here that biodiversity considerations can best be taken into account. Closer coordination between national agencies responsible for the implementation of the various international environmental agreements is a critical first step in this regard so that biodiversity strategies can be “climate-proofed” and vice versa.

Biodiversity co-benefits of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation)

An OECD report examines how biodiversity co-benefits in REDD can be enhanced, both at the design and implementation level. It discusses potential biodiversity implications of different REDD design options that have been put forward in the international climate change negotiations and proceeds by examining how the creation of additional biodiversity-specific incentives could be used to complement a REDD mechanism, so as to target biodiversity benefits directly (http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/workingpaper/220188577008)

Health and climate change

The Lancet journal offers a perspective on the health benefits of tackling climate change (http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@policy_communications/documents/web_document/wtx057673.pdf)