.png)
(Press release published by IPBES)
The focus is on the underlying causes of the biodiversity crisis and the options for a just and sustainable world. Acting now could generate $10 trillion in business opportunity value and support 395 million jobs by 2030.
Windhoek, Namibia - A landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights the urgent need for profound changes in the way people perceive and interact with the natural world. These changes are essential if we are to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity and preserve life on Earth.
The report, entitled Transformative Change Report, addresses the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and the drivers of change needed to achieve the 2050 vision for biodiversity. It builds on the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report, which revealed that only transformative change would achieve global development goals. It also builds on the IPBES 2022 values assessment report.
This report was prepared over a three-year period, involving over 100 experts from 42 countries around the world. It explores what transformative change is, how it happens and, above all, how we can accelerate this process to build a world that is both just and sustainable.
“Transformative change for a just and sustainable world is urgently needed, as the window of opportunity is closing to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and prevent the onset of the potentially irreversible decline and predicted collapse of key ecosystem functions,” said Professor Karen O'Brien (Norway/USA), co-chair of the assessment with Professor Arun Agrawal (India and USA) and Professor Lucas Garibaldi (Argentina). “Under current trends, there is a significant risk that several irreversible biophysical tipping points will be passed, including the dieback of low-lying coral reefs, the dieback of the Amazon rainforest and the loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps. Transformative change is also needed because most previous and current approaches to conservation, which aim to reform rather than transform systems, have failed to halt or reverse the decline of nature worldwide, with serious implications for the global economy and human well-being.”
The report estimates that the cost of taking action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and nature decline worldwide, even by delaying action for a decade, is twice as high as taking action now. Acting immediately can also unlock huge business and innovation opportunities through sustainable economic approaches, such as nature-positive economics, ecological economics and the Mother Earth economy. According to recent estimates, more than $10,000 billion in business opportunity value could be generated and 395 million jobs supported worldwide by 2030.
Approved on Monday in Windhoek, Namibia, by the IPBES plenary, made up of 147 IPBES member governments, the report defines transformative change as fundamental system-wide shifts in perspectives - ways of thinking, knowing and seeing; structures - ways of organizing, regulating and governing; and practices - ways of doing, behaving and interacting. The current dominant configurations of views, structures and practices perpetuate and reinforce the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature decline. Transforming them is essential to meeting global commitments to a just and sustainable world.
“Promoting and accelerating transformative change is essential to achieving the 23 action-oriented goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030 and the four targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030, as well as to realizing the Biodiversity Vision 2050, which describes a world where all forms of life can flourish,” said Professor Agrawal.” Transformative change is rarely the result of a single event, driver or actor. It is better understood as changes that each of us can create, and multiple cascading changes that trigger and reinforce each other, often in unexpected ways.”
The underlying causes of biodiversity loss identified by the report are the disconnection of people from nature and domination over nature and other people; the inequitable concentration of power and wealth; and the prioritization of short-term individual and material gains.
“However complex and difficult the fight against these underlying causes of biodiversity loss, it is possible,” said Professor Garibaldi. “History has shown us that societies can transform themselves on an immense scale - as they did during the Industrial Revolution. Although that era brought terrible environmental and human costs, it is proof that fundamental system-wide change is possible, even if it occurred over a much longer period than is necessary for actual transformative change for a just and sustainable world. To achieve our shared global development goals today, we need to embark on a new transformation - one that urgently conserves and restores our planet's biodiversity rather than depleting it, while enabling everyone to prosper.”
The authors have created and analyzed a database of hundreds of case studies of global initiatives with transformative potential. Their analysis shows that positive results across a range of economic and environmental indicators can be achieved in a decade or less. The study also reveals that initiatives addressing several indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and nature decline, as well as those where diverse actors collaborate, produce more positive outcomes for societies, economies and nature.
Read the rest of the press release: https://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change/media-release