Communicating biodiversity loss and its link to economics

Abstract

Climate change and biodiversity loss are the two most important features of human-driven global environmental change. They are also closely related. Not only are they both direct consequences of human population growth, natural resource consumption and waste, but there are many interrelationships among the actions that will be necessary to address each of them. However, while biodiversity loss attracts a great deal of popular interest, it has not achieved the same degree of political attention as climate change. Biodiversity lacks effective intergovernmental commitments, something that biodiversity scientists regularly lament (Legagneux et al., 2018). Perhaps this is because the causes of biodiversity loss are complex and less clear-cut than are the causes of climate change. While it is clear that moving away from our current carbon-based economy will be difficult, it is much more tangible than the multiple actions across scales and sectors that will be required to reverse biodiversity loss (IPBES, 2019). At least we know what we must do to limit the degree of climate change. But the lack of binding commitments addressing biodiversity loss may also be due to the fact that the immediate consequences of biodiversity loss are neither evident nor obviously material compared to climate change impacts. It is accepted that climate change carries substantial economic costs, and even existential threats. By contrast, the consequences of biodiversity loss are multiple, vague and often contested. While there are very good reasons to be concerned about biodiversity loss and its potential to pose a serious risk to future generations, biodiversity can be perceived as an idle concern for amateur naturalists, or a manageable problem that technological innovation will address as necessary. The recognition of ecosystem services and their importance for society (Daily, 1997) has to some extent transformed the way in which biodiversity is perceived in policy-making. A developing narrative about the dependence of people on nature, and assessments such as those produced by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005), The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB, 2010), and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES,