Context:

Recently, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has launched the Nexus report. 

More on the news:

The Assessment Report on the Interlinkages Among Biodiversity, Water, Food, and Health, known as the Nexus Report offers decision-makers around the world the most ambitious scientific assessment.

This report presents complex interconnections and explores more than five dozen specific response options to maximize co-benefits across five ‘nexus elements’: 

• Biodiversity, 
• Water, 
• Food, 
• Health, and 
• Climate change.

The final full report will be published in 2025, and it is expected to further guide global efforts toward addressing these interconnected crises.

Key Highlights from the Report

The Nexus Report includes 186 scenarios, projecting interactions between the Nexus elements until 2050-2100.

This Report provides over 70 solutions for managing the intersection of biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate change.

The report urges countries to break away from single-issue approaches and adopt integrated governance and decision-making across these areas.

Integrated and adaptive decision-making is highlighted as key to improving governance and reducing negative impacts across different sectors.

The report identifies the drivers of biodiversity loss as follows: - 

• Indirect drivers: Overconsumption, waste, and population growth.
• Direct drivers: Land use change and pollution.

The world has been witnessing biodiversity decline at the rate of about 2-6 percent on an average every decade over the last half a century.

Existing policies have failed to address the complexity of interlinked challenges, often prioritizing one aspect (e.g., food production or climate change) at the expense of others thus leading to adverse outcomes.

• Economic policies often ignore the environmental costs, leading to $10-25 trillion per year in unaccounted costs related to biodiversity, water, health, and climate change.
• Delays in addressing these issues could double costs and result in irreparable biodiversity loss and increased financial burdens in the future.

Current policies have been insufficient in controlling negative economic impacts on the nexus elements (biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate), which together generate $58 trillion in global economic activity.

Illegal resource extraction, including wildlife trade, timber, and fisheries, is valued at $100-300 billion annually, which further degrades ecosystems.

• In contrast, global expenditure on biodiversity protection is less than 1% of global GDP. 
• Negative externalities from sectors like fossil fuels and agriculture, which affect biodiversity and water systems, cost up to $25 trillion annually.

Impact on Ecosystems:

• Forests, that provide vital ecosystem services like water filtration, are under threat due to deforestation, impacting water availability and quality.
• Wetlands are critical in water regulation and climate change mitigation but are being degraded by human activities.
• Freshwater biodiversity is deteriorating faster than terrestrial ecosystems due to human activities.
• Marine and freshwater species, particularly those in coastal and wetland areas, are especially vulnerable to pollution, sediments, and other anthropogenic stressors.
• Coral reefs face multiple threats, including unsustainable fishing, ocean acidification, and climate change, endangering about a third of coral species globally.

The report suggests that Governments should act decisively and collaborate across sectors to meet global environmental and health commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

IPBES called for fundamental and transformative shifts in the way people view and interact with the natural world in pursuit of its well-being.

Report said that current, and previous, approaches to deal with ecological decline had failed, and a new transformative approach is needed and it must be based on four fundamental principles: 

• Equity and justice, 
• Pluralism and inclusion, 
• Respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships, and 
• Adaptive learning and action.

The report warns that delaying action would significantly increase costs, with potential economic benefits from immediate action estimated at $10 trillion in business opportunities and 400 million jobs by 2030.