Climate change and land use scenarios to protect biodiversity 

Ecosystem services are nature’s contribution to humanity’s needs, such as the provision of clean water, local air and climate regulation, risk and disease protection – nature also provides inspiration and a sense of place. Biodiversity – the diversity of genes, species, landscapes and their interactions – underpins these ecosystem services and is one of the strongest levers to achieve the Sustainability Development Goals.

The 2050 Vision for Biodiversity aims to protect and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), share benefits, invest and collaborate. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has highlighted the current threats to BES: since the 1970s, 75% of land surface has been significantly altered; 66% of the ocean's area has been impacted; and 85% of wetlands area have been lost.

The global economy is at risk because BES are instrumental in the functioning of our societies and economy – more than half of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on them.

Therefore, policy-makers, civil society organizations and corporate leaders need a granular picture of that risk. Scenarios can provide such a picture by analysing many of the potential impacts and dependencies on BES. Ideally, scenarios look at climate change and land use as two of the BES pressures that matter across the globe, provide geo-spatial data and local to regional insights into the complexity of BES.

A multistakeholder coalition, including Swiss Re Foundation, Swiss Re Institute, AXA Research Fund, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and EY*, awarded five multi-scale scenario projects (listed below) to work on the development of BES strategies against environmental degradation by illustrating challenges and solutions.

The five projects are all rooted in data, local and regional experience, and iterative learning. They relate to the writings of Mintzberg, which says that crafted strategies are more effective than rigid planning processes. We can apply crafted scenarios for the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity to better understand biodiversity change, understand how to reverse BES degradation, enhance resilience and clarify policy options.

The 2050 Vision for Biodiversity needs scenario-based strategies to transform the impacts of current global environmental degradation on BES. Scenarios can model the causes of BES changes at different spatial and temporal levels. These scenarios are especially important for economies heavily dependent on BES. For example, modelling the future provision of BES such as water availability can pre-empt potential impacts to industrial activities depending on water. They can provide local authorities and businesses with first-step guidance on how to build resilience into their communities or value chains.

BES scenarios can help the international community anticipate where nature-based investments will increase resilience against natural catastrophes. Successful scenarios face three challenges, they must: identify major BES loss drivers; incorporate different geospatial levels; and acknowledge conflicting stakeholder preferences. The five teams met these challenges by proposing examples for local to national outcomes and solutions.

The five teams use historical climate and land use trends to quantify their impact and to build predictions of the future. For instance, ETH Zurich produces high-granularity maps that show the change in species distribution and ecosystem services in Peru as a result of these interacting trends. VU Amsterdam builds European agro-biodiversity scenarios that evaluate the long-term threat of biodiversity loss on agricultural productivity. The University of Zurich simulates land use processes that could make ecosystem services loss irreversible.

ETH Zurich (for Peru), UB-ERI Belize and IIS Brazil use a participatory process of scenario creation. They involve local communities in a dialogue on political and societal preferences and potential responses to local BES loss and global climate change. This consensus-finding scenario development approach is transformational because it supports ownership and increases commitment to sustainable solutions.

For the Belize Maya Forest corridor, UB-ERI Belize maps community ecosystem and livelihood dependencies with climatic and non-climatic risks. For the state of Rio de Janeiro, IIS Brazil develops a replicable disaster risk management framework to guide the implementation of ecosystem restoration and conservation solutions. The latter will allow those affected to better cope with flooding, rising sea levels, increasing precipitation and heat islands.

Land use and climate change will impact the future distribution of species and ecosystem service provisions. Consequently, the future values that ecosystem services provide – e.g. contribution to pollination, or abatement cost savings of tons of CO2 sequestered from preventing loss of forest or grassland – will change geographically. Measures with the greatest overall climate adaptation impact can guide local restoration and conservation policies, as demonstrated by IIS for the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The 30x30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework requires signatory countries to identify and protect priority areas. The case studies for Peru, Belize and the State of Rio de Janeiro identify potential areas. The University of Zurich's global model supports this process for islands, deltas and mountainous regions. VU Amsterdam identifies European hotspots of biodiversity change which can be used within conservation planning scenarios. If the 30x30 target is combined with climate adaptation and mitigation goals, economic benefits of conservation area coverage can be derived.

The five projects also suggest establishing robust value chains for restoration and the associated infrastructure. Governments need to secure land rights and enforce existing environmental laws. Policy gaps, such as the integration of land use planning, zoning and restoration, should be closed. Last, but not least, it is important to spread awareness about our dependencies and impacts on nature. In that way, we can sharpen our long-term perspective and better understand how what we produce and consume has an impact elsewhere.

Scenarios are tools for encouraging and directing transformative environmental and socioeconomic action. They are a lens through which scientists, stakeholders and policy-makers can explore likely outcomes and inform strategic decision-making. By recognizing the diverse uses of scenarios and their potential impacts, we can harness their potential to address complex biodiversity and climate change challenges. We should start to explore and refine BES scenario-building in environmental policy and corporate strategies.

*EY as service provider to Swiss Re.
The entire award covers a two year period, projects will finish towards end of 2025.

Contributors: Maud Abdelli (WWF), Florian Altermatt (UZH), Eloi Astier (AXA Research Fund), Benjamin Black (ETH), Ivis Chan (UB-ERI), Adrienne Grêt-Regamey (ETH), Elodie de Warlincourt (Swiss Re Foundation), Stefan Huber Fux (Swiss Re Foundation), Christos Karydas (EY), Jochen Krimphoff (WWF), Rafael Loyola (IIS), Juliana Monteiro de Almeida Rocha (IIS), Jake Snaddon (UB-ERI), Christoph Nabholz (Swiss Re), Adrien Portafaix (EY), Martin Reader (UZH), Federico Riva (VU Amsterdam), Maria J. Santos (UZH), Josef Settele (UFZ Helmholtz).