Biodiversity loss is considered among the most impactful and most likely risks in the next decade, with concerns ranging from the potential collapse of food and health systems to the disruption of entire supply chains. The scientific community has long been unequivocal about biodiversity destruction. Recently the UN reported that the world has failed to meet any of the 2020 Aichi biodiversity targets that countries agreed with fanfare back in 2010.

The UN said the biodiversity across the natural world was deteriorating despite the Paris agreement. For the UN’s biodiversity head, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, humanity is at a crossroads that would decide how future generations experience the natural world.

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Humanity’s actions are causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and with it the Living Earth’s ability to support complex life forms. Yet few political, economic, or social systems are prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. The problem is often compounded by ignorance and short-term self-interest. In fact, the scale of the threats to the Earth’s biosphere and all its lifeforms is so great that it is at times difficult to grasp by even well-informed experts.

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For Robert Watson of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity:  “The health of the ecosystems on which we and other species depend is deteriorating rapidly. We are eroding the very foundations of livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.  We're on a collision course with the Living Earth, but with public support we can change that by proving we can handle the biodiversity crisis. Sadly, as of yet very few government-commissioned reports concerning global warming have made a real difference. Often governments call on experts to look into a contentious issue in the hope of kicking necessary and urgent change it into the long grass, and when a weighty reports duly arrives with uncomfortable recommendations, it is all too often quietly ignored.

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It is easy to see how the review into the economics of biodiversity by the Cambridge University academic Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta could be one of those that gatherers dust in the Treasury, because it has a tough message. Put simply, Dasgupta says humanity – about 8 billion of us – has been, and remains, is on a collision course with the natural world. Our current economic systems are unsustainable and endanger the well-being of current and future generations.

The review is full of alarming statistics, of which perhaps the scariest is that in little more than two decades, between 1992 and 2014, there was a 40% fall in the stock of natural capital per person. That includes the water we drink, the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food, and all living things shared among the global population.

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The global economy today is 14 times larger than it was in 1950. There has been a massive increase in prosperity but it has come at a “devastating” cost to nature: the extinction of species; the depletion of fish stocks; the destruction of coral reefs; the shrinking of the rain forests etc.

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The alarming findings of the recent climate review are, of course, the reason why it should acted upon, rather than buried away somewhere. It will be less costly to act now than it will be to act later, by which time it may be too late. The question is whether any government is prepared for the radical changes needed in order to protect the Living Earth.

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For various governments, politicians and power structures protecting the environment seems less important than getting the economy to grow. Failure to strengthen the international effort (See: COP15 Biodiversity Summit Montreal (December 2022)) to reduce global biodiversity would be a disaster. The issue, though, is not whether there is progress but whether that progress can be accelerated.

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Another is that governments should stop subsidising the use of fossil fuels.  A third is the approach advocated by Mariana Mazzucato in her new book, Mission Economy. This takes as its inspiration the announcement by John F Kennedy’s administration in 1961 that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Washington announced what the mission was; a partnership between the state and business found ways of making sure it happened.

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As Mazzucato freely admits, the Apollo programme was a doddle compared with today’s biodiversity and environmental challenges, because it was essentially a technocratic matter that didn’t require any sacrifices by the American people who were merely spectators. Tackling the climate crisis is different. Progress can be made only with the consent of the general public. The need for change is glaringly obvious, and the opportunity is there too, and as Larry Elliott* points out that such an opportunity must not be squandered.

 

*Larry Elliott is an English journalist and author who focuses on economic issues. He is the economics editor at The Guardian, and has published seven books on related issues, six of them in partnership with Dan Atkinson.

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