Some of the major challenges that the humankind is facing in recent times such as climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger and poor health, are all interlinked, according to a major scientific report. The report by IPBES has stated that in order to address all of these challenges, there is a need to adopt an integrated approach. It emphasised, trying to deal with these challenges separately might not only be ineffective, but also counterproductive.
“They interact, cascade and compound each other in ways that make separate efforts to address them ineffective and counterproductive,” the report said.
The report has said that in the present form of undertaking economic activities, an unaccounted for loss of at least 10-25 trillion dollars a year is suffered because of the negative impacts on biodiversity, climate change, food production, water and health.
Nexus Report by IPBES
The Nexus Report by IPBES, has explained that dealing with one of the challenges without taking into account the other challenges can only end up harming the other aspects. For example, if an attempt is made to scale up the food production in order to deal with the issues of hunger and malnutrition, it could have a negative impact to the soil, water and biodiversity, and vice-versa.
The report has argued that in order to tackle all of these challenges, it was important to adopt synergistic approaches. The report has also provided a solution by identifying such synergistic approaches. It has observed more than 70 response options that have produced positive outcomes across all five elements. The examples of such approaches included restoration of carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, soils and mangroves, effective management of biodiversity to reduce risks of diseases spreading from animals to humans, promotion of sustainable healthy diets, and reliance on nature-based solutions wherever possible.
The report clarified that the effort must be to find, and implement, actions that focus on sustainable production and consumption while also conserving and restoring ecosystems, reducing pollution, and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
The report has highlighted that damaging nature and biodiversity is detriment to economic growth. It has pointed out that more than half of the global GDP is moderately to highly dependent on nature. Deterioration of natural ecosystems, therefore, could directly hurt productivity and adversely impact economic output.
The report has said that the new and transformative approach must be based on four fundamental principles — equity and justice, pluralism and inclusion, respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships, and adaptive learning and action.
