The climate and nature agendas must align at COP28. Can help come from space?

Within weeks of last year’s climate COP in Egypt, a landmark deal on nature was agreed at the biodiversity COP in Canada — the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We celebrated this agreement as the "Paris moment" for nature. By committing to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, governments had agreed on a nature-positive goal that matched the ambition of the carbon-neutral goal set in Paris in 2015.

Unfortunately, neither the proximity of the two events nor the interconnected nature of the goals they agreed to, resulted in close alignment on the outcome texts. While it was encouraging to see text on nature-based solutions — a polarizing topic at the previous COP in Glasgow, UK — make it to the final decision in Sharm El-Sheik, the text itself was non-committal. It merely encouraged Parties to consider nature-based solutions for mitigation and adaptation, making no reference to the synergies with the Convention on Biological Diversity.

This was a huge missed opportunity for creating a sustainable future for our planet and humanity. But, the fact that we now have set measurable goals for both climate and nature, gives us a chance to connect these two crucial and interconnected agendas. In fact, we know that alongside reducing emissions we must also preserve nature’s ability to absorb and store carbon away from the atmosphere. For decades over half of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have been neutralized by land, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Without this, we would already live on a much hotter planet.

We also know that nature can go one step further. By actively investing in mangrove protection and restoration, for example, we can capture huge amounts of carbon dioxide while, at the same time, protecting coastal areas from the impacts of climate change that are already being felt by populations and economies.

However, rather than leveraging nature as an ally in fighting climate change, we are pushing the natural world into crisis. Entire ecosystems are rapidly heading towards tipping points — globally, from coral reefs to polar ice sheets and regionally, with entire ecoregions, such as the forests of the Amazon and Southeast Asia, in jeopardy.

The pathway forward is clear, for nature and for climate. We must protect more of the nature left on the planet and protect it better; restore as much as we can of what has been degraded; and sustainably manage the rest, including our productive landscapes. And, we must shift financial flows from supporting nature-negative practices to promoting nature-positive ones in key economic sectors, such as agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure, forestry and extractives.

COP28 in Dubai is an opportunity to advance an integrated nature-climate plan of action, embracing nature-based solutions that help conserve biodiversity and mitigate and adapt to climate change.

First, we must score some wins in the negotiations. Nature positive outcomes must be seen as central to climate solutions, alongside the necessary emission reduction targets, and an integral part of tracking progress on climate action.

Most countries - ranging from the Maldives to China to Colombia - have already incorporated nature-based solutions in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in various ways to support their climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives. These commitments must expand to all countries and could be strengthened by including specific, measurable targets on nature-based solutions and by aligning NDC targets with those for other international policy frameworks, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Second, we need a credible and independent way to measure progress on these targets. For this, help can come from space. There are thousands of satellites scanning the Earth’s surface for all sorts of clues, from crop harvest predictions to water temperatures and level changes. This remote sensing technology, combined with observations on the ground, modelling and other tools, could allow us to monitor with great precision and in real time the distribution of natural habitats and their transformations as a result of human activities or natural events.

Despite this technological potential, data on ecosystems is fragmented and not easily accessible. The Global Ecosystems Atlas initiative, an international collaboration led by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) aims to produce a consolidated, coherent global map of the world’s ecosystem types and bring greater alignment between nature, climate and other agendas, such as water and food security.

This new tool will allow harmonized monitoring and reporting on ecosystems, helping countries implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, as well as the nature-related components of the climate NDCs under the Paris Agreement and other multilateral environmental agreements on land degradation and desertification, loss of wetlands and freshwater habitats, ocean health and sustainable development.

The Earth is screaming for action on climate and biodiversity. At this climate COP we must listen and respond. With nature’s potential to positively impact the climate and Earth observations’ potential to measure and support that impact, it is time to focus on actions to address the climate and biodiversity crises at once. At a time when we are beginning to understand the catastrophic consequences of inaction, as well as our dependence on a thriving natural world for a prosperous and just future, there are no more excuses for backtracking to business as usual.