Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 31176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research Fellowship

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framewor

58 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables- The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). - Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. - Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. - If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. [...]A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 311176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research FellowshipPeer reviewe

Land-based implications of early climate actions without global net-negative emissions

Delaying climate mitigation action and allowing a temporary overshoot of temperature targets require large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century that may induce adverse side effects on land, food and ecosystems. Meanwhile, meeting climate goals without global net-negative emissions inevitably needs early and rapid emission reduction measures, which also brings challenges in the near term. Here we identify the implications for land-use and food systems of scenarios that do not depend on land-based CDR technologies. We find that early climate action has multiple benefits and trade-offs, and avoids the need for drastic (mitigation-induced) shifts in land use in the long term. Further long-term benefits are lower food prices, reduced risk of hunger and lower demand for irrigation water. Simultaneously, however, near-term mitigation pressures in the agriculture, forest and land-use sector and the required land area for energy crops increase, resulting in additional risk of food insecurity.JRC.C.6 - Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Land-based measures to mitigate climate change: Potential and feasibility by country

Land-based climate mitigation measures have gained significant attention and importance in public and private sector climate policies. Building on previous studies, we refine and update the mitigation potentials for 20 land-based measures in >200 countries and five regions, comparing “bottom-up” sectoral estimates with integrated assessment models (IAMs). We also assess implementation feasibility at the country level. Cost-effective (available up to $100/tCO2eq) land-based mitigation is 8–13.8 GtCO2eq yr−1 between 2020 and 2050, with the bottom end of this range representing the IAM median and the upper end representing the sectoral estimate. The cost-effective sectoral estimate is about 40% of available technical potential and is in line with achieving a 1.5°C pathway in 2050. Compared to technical potentials, cost-effective estimates represent a more realistic and actionable target for policy. The cost-effective potential is approximately 50% from forests and other ecosystems, 35% from agriculture, and 15% from demand-side measures. The potential varies sixfold across the five regions assessed (0.75–4.8 GtCO2eq yr−1) and the top 15 countries account for about 60% of the global potential. Protection of forests and other ecosystems and demand-side measures present particularly high mitigation efficiency, high provision of co-benefits, and relatively lower costs. The feasibility assessment suggests that governance, economic investment, and socio-cultural conditions influence the likelihood that land-based mitigation potentials are realized. A substantial portion of potential (80%) is in developing countries and LDCs, where feasibility barriers are of greatest concern. Assisting countries to overcome barriers may result in significant quantities of near-term, low-cost mitigation while locally achieving important climate adaptation and development benefits. Opportunities among countries vary widely depending on types of land-based measures available, their potential co-benefits and risks, and their feasibility. Enhanced investments and country-specific plans that accommodate this complexity are urgently needed to realize the large global potential from improved land stewardship.JRC.D.1 - Bio-econom

Cost and attainability of meeting stringent climate targets without overshoot

Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change. The current scenarios, however, are criticized because they feature strategies with pronounced overshoot of the global temperature goal, requiring a long-term repair phase to draw temperatures down again through net-negative emissions. Some impacts might not be reversible. Hence, we explore a new set of net-zero CO2 emissions scenarios with limited overshoot. We show that upfront investments are needed in the near term for limiting temperature overshoot but that these would bring long-term economic gains. Our study further identifies alternative configurations of net-zero CO2 emissions systems and the roles of different sectors and regions for balancing sources and sinks. Even without net-negative emissions, CO2 removal is important for accelerating near-term reductions and for providing an anthropogenic sink that can offset the residual emissions in sectors that are hard to abate.JRC.C.6 - Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transpor

Assessing uncertainties in land cover projections

Understanding uncertainties in land cover projections is critical to investigating land-based climate mitigation policies, assessing the potential of climate adaptation strategies and quantifying the impacts of land cover change on the climate system. Here, we identify and quantify uncertainties in global and European land cover projections over a diverse range of model types and scenarios, extending the analysis beyond the agro-economic models included in previous comparisons. The results from 75 simulations over 18 models are analysed and show a large range in land cover area projections, with the highest variability occurring in future cropland areas. We demonstrate systematic differences in land cover areas associated with the characteristics of the modelling approach, which is at least as great as the differences attributed to the scenario variations. The results lead us to conclude that a higher degree of uncertainty exists in land use projections than currently included in climate or earth system projections. To account for land use uncertainty, it is recommended to use a diverse set of models and approaches when assessing the potential impacts of land cover change on future climate. Additionally, further work is needed to better understand the assumptions driving land use model results and reveal the causes of uncertainty in more depth, to help reduce model uncertainty and improve the projections of land cover.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. The current report, based on the work of over 100 economists/scientists, analyses the global economic implications of a 30% PA target for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and the PA/nature sector itself. (OECMs were only defined by the CBD in 2018, too recently to economically model, but we include a qualitative treatment of them.) We carried out two analyses: a global financial one (concrete revenues and costs only); and a tropics- focused economic one (including non-monetary ecosystem service values), for multiple scenarios of how a 30% PA target might be implemented. Our financial analysis showed that expanding PAs to 30% would generate higher overall output (revenues) than non-expansion (an extra $64 billion-$454 billion per year by 2050). (Figure 1-2). In the economic analysis, only a partial assessment was possible, focusing on forests and mangroves. For those biomes alone, the 30% target had an avoided-loss value of $170-$534 billion per year by 2050, largely reflecting the benefit of avoiding the flooding, climate change, soil loss and coastal storm- surge damage that occur when natural vegetation is removed. The value for all biomes would be higher. Implementing the proposal would therefore make little initial difference to total (multi-sector) economic output, although a modest rise in gross output value is projected. The main immediate difference between expansion and non-expansion is therefore in broader economic/social values. Expansion outperforms non-expansion in mitigating the very large economic risks of climate change and biodiversity loss (Figure 5). The 30% target would also increase by 63%- 98% the area recognised as Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land-based nature stewardship contribution (within appropriate rights and governance frameworks). Economic growth in the PA/nature sector (at 4-6%) was also many times faster than the 1% growth expected in competing sectors (Figure 3). Marine expansion restores growth to fisheries (after a shock) but non-expansion leads to a mid-term contraction (Figure 4). The annual investment needed for an expanded (30%) PA system is $103 –$178 billion1. This figure includes $68 billion for the existing system, of which only$24.3 is currently spent. (Underfunded systems lose revenue, assets, carbon and biodiversity). Most of the investment need is in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These often have a competitive asset advantage in terms of natural areas, but they may need international support to capitalise on that opportunity. Otherwise, growing the PA sector could also entrench global economic inequalities. Benefits and costs also accrue to different stakeholders at smaller (e.g. local) scales, making welfare distribution a challenge that needs addressing

Organismos modificados para el medio ambiente: historias de éxito y fracaso, y qué hemos aprendido de ellas

The expectations raised in the mid-1980s on the potential of genetic engineering for in situ remediation of environmental pollution have not been entirely fulfilled. Yet, we have learned a good deal about the expression of catabolic pathways by bacteria in their natural habitats, and how environmental conditions dictate the expression of desired catalytic activities. The many different choices between nutrients and responses to stresses form a network of transcriptional switches which, given the redundance and robustness of the regulatory circuits involved, can be neither unraveled through standard genetic analysis nor artificially programmed in a simple manner. Available data suggest that population dynamics and physiological control of catabolic gene expression prevail over any artificial attempt to engineer an optimal performance of the wanted catalytic activities. In this review, several valuable spin-offs of past research into genetically modified organisms with environmental applications are discussed, along with the impact of Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology in the future of environmental biotechnology.The work of our laboratories cited in this article was funded by grants of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the European Union, and the Conservation Biology Program of the BBVA Foundation.Peer reviewe

Organismos modificados para el medio ambiente: historias de éxito y fracaso, y qué hemos aprendido de ellas

The expectations raised in the mid-1980s on the potential of genetic engineering for in situ remediation of environmental pollution have not been entirely fulfilled. Yet, we have learned a good deal about the expression of catabolic pathways by bacteria in their natural habitats, and how environmental conditions dictate the expression of desired catalytic activities. The many different choices between nutrients and responses to stresses form a network of transcriptional switches which, given the redundance and robustness of the regulatory circuits involved, can be neither unraveled through standard genetic analysis nor artificially programmed in a simple manner. Available data suggest that population dynamics and physiological control of catabolic gene expression prevail over any artificial attempt to engineer an optimal performance of the wanted catalytic activities. In this review, several valuable spin-offs of past research into genetically modified organisms with environmental applications are discussed, along with the impact of Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology in the future of environmental biotechnology.The work of our laboratories cited in this article was funded by grants of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the European Union, and the Conservation Biology Program of the BBVA Foundation.Peer reviewe