Approved on Monday by the 11th session of the IPBES Plenary, composed of representatives of the 147 Governments that are members of IPBES, the report is the product of three years of work by 165 leading international experts from 57 countries from all regions of the world. It finds that existing actions to address these challenges fail to tackle the complexity of interlinked problems and result in inconsistent governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have to move decisions and actions beyond single-issue silos to better manage, govern and improve the impact of actions in one nexus element on other elements,\u201d said Prof. Paula Harrison (United Kingdom), co-chair of the Assessment with Prof. Pamela McElwee (USA). \u201cTake for example the health challenge of schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia) \u2013 a parasitic disease that can cause life-long ill health and which affects more than 200 million people worldwide \u2013 especially in Africa. Treated only as a health challenge \u2013 usually through medication \u2013 the problem often recurs as people are reinfected. An innovative project in rural Senegal took a different approach \u2013 reducing water pollution and removing invasive water plants to reduce the habitat for the snails that host the parasitic worms that carry the disease \u2013 resulting in a 32% reduction in infections in children, improved access to freshwater and new revenue for the local communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe best way to bridge single issue silos is through integrated and adaptive decision-making. \u2018Nexus approaches\u2019 offer policies and actions that are more coherent and coordinated \u2013 moving us towards the transformative change needed to meet our development and sustainability goals,\u201d said Prof. McElwee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Past and Current Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The report states that biodiversity \u2013 the richness and variety of all life on Earth \u2013 is declining at every level from global to local, and across every region. These ongoing declines in nature, largely as a result of human activity, including climate change, have direct and dire impacts on food security and nutrition, water quality and availability, health and wellbeing outcomes, resilience to climate change and almost all of nature\u2019s other contributions to people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on previous IPBES reports, in particular the 2022 Values Assessment Report<\/em><\/a> and the 2019 Global Assessment Report<\/em><\/a>, which identified the most important direct drivers of biodiversity loss, including land- and sea-use change, unsustainable exploitation, invasive alien species and pollution, the Nexus Report further underscores how indirect socioeconomic drivers, such as increasing waste, overconsumption and population growth, intensify the direct drivers \u2013 worsening impacts on all parts of the nexus. The majority of 12 assessed indicators across these indirect drivers \u2013 such as GDP, population levels and overall food supply, have all increased or accelerated since 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEfforts of Governments and other stakeholders have often failed to take into account indirect drivers and their impact on interactions between nexus elements because they remain fragmented, with many institutions working in isolation \u2013 often resulting in conflicting objectives, inefficiencies and negative incentives, leading to unintended consequences,\u201d said Prof. Harrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report highlights that more than half of global gross domestic product \u2013 more than $50 trillion of annual economic activity around the world \u2013 is moderately to highly dependent on nature. \u201cBut current decision-making has prioritized short-term financial returns while ignoring costs to nature, and failed to hold actors to account for negative economic pressures on the natural world. It is estimated that the unaccounted-for costs of current approaches to economic activity \u2013 reflecting impacts on biodiversity, water, health and climate change, including from food production \u2013 are at least $10-25 trillion per year,\u201d said Prof. McElwee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The existence of such unaccounted-for costs, alongside direct public subsidies to economic activities that have negative impacts on biodiversity (approximately $1.7 trillion per year), enhances private financial incentives to invest in economic activities that cause direct damage to nature (approximately $5.3 trillion per year), in spite of growing evidence of biophysical risks to economic progress and financial stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delaying the action needed to meet policy goals will also increase the costs of delivering it. Delayed action on biodiversity goals, for example, could as much as double costs \u2013 also increasing the probability of irreplaceable losses such as species extinctions. Delayed action on climate change adds at least $500 billion per year in additional costs for meeting policy targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unequal Impacts and Need for Inclusive Decision-Making<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnother key message from the report is that the increasingly negative effects of intertwined global crises have very unequal impacts, disproportionately affecting some more than others,\u201d said Prof. Harrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than half of the world\u2019s population is living in areas experiencing the highest impacts from declines in biodiversity, water availability and quality and food security, and increases in health risks and negative effects of climate change. These burdens especially affect developing countries, including small island developing states, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, as well as those in vulnerable situations in higher-income countries. 41% of people live in areas that saw extremely strong declines in biodiversity between 2000 and 2010, 9% in areas that have experienced very high health burdens and 5% in areas with high levels of malnutrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some efforts \u2013 such as research and innovation, education and environmental regulations \u2013 have been partially successful in improving trends across nexus elements, but the report finds these are unlikely to succeed without addressing interlinkages more fully and tackling indirect drivers like trade and consumption. Decision-making that is more inclusive, with a particular focus on equity, can help ensure those most affected are included in solutions, in addition to larger economic and financial reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Future Scenarios<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The report also examines future challenges \u2013 assessing 186 different scenarios from 52 separate studies, which project interactions between three or more of the nexus elements, mostly covering the periods up to 2050 and 2100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A key message from this analysis is that if current \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d trends in direct and indirect drivers of change continue, the outcomes will be extremely poor for biodiversity, water quality and human health \u2013 with worsening climate change and increasing challenges to meet global policy goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, a focus on trying to maximize the outcomes for only one part of the nexus in isolation will likely result in negative outcomes for the other nexus elements. For example, a \u2018food first\u2019 approach prioritizes food production with positive benefits on nutritional health, arising from unsustainable intensification of production and increased per capita consumption. This has negative impacts on biodiversity, water and climate change. An exclusive focus on climate change can result in negative outcomes for biodiversity and food, reflecting competition for land. Weak environmental regulation, made worse by delays, results in worsening impacts for biodiversity, food, human health and climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFuture scenarios do exist that have positive outcomes for people and nature by providing co- benefits across the nexus elements,\u201d said Prof Harrison. \u201cThe future scenarios with the widest nexus benefits are those with actions that focus on sustainable production and consumption in combination with conserving and restoring ecosystems, reducing pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An important aim of IPBES work is to provide the science and evidence needed to support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Nexus Report shows that scenarios focusing on synergies among biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change have the best likely outcomes for the SDGs \u2013 and that focusing on addressing the challenges in just one sector \u2013 such as food, biodiversity or climate change in isolation \u2013 seriously limits the chances of meeting other goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Response Options<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The report shows that there are a significant number of responses \u2013 on a policy, political and community level \u2013 currently available to sustainably manage across biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change, some of which are also low cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authors present more than 70 of these \u2018response options\u2019 to help manage the nexus elements synergistically, representing 10 broad categories of action. Examples of these response options that have broadly positive impacts across nexus elements are: restoring carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, soils, mangroves; managing biodiversity to reduce risk of diseases spreading from animals to humans; improving integrated landscape and seascape management; urban nature- based solutions; sustainable healthy diets; and supporting Indigenous food systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other response options are important, but may not have as many synergistic benefits for all nexus elements. Some, such as offshore wind power and dams, may have negative impacts on other nexus elements if not carefully implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more than 70 response options presented in the report, taken together, support the achievement of all 17 SDGs, all 23 targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the long-term goals for climate change mitigation and adaptation of the Paris Agreement. Twenty four of the response options advance more than five SDGs and more than five of the Global Biodiversity Framework targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Implementing response options together or in sequence can further improve their positive impacts and achieve cost savings. Ensuring inclusive participation, such as including Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the co-design, governance and implementation of response options, can also increase the benefits and equity of these measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSome good examples include marine protected areas that have included communities in management and decision-making,\u201d said Prof. McElwee. \u201cThese have led to increases in biodiversity, greater abundance of fish to feed people and improved incomes for local communities and often increased tourism revenues as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nexus Governance Approaches & Action<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking about what will be needed to advance effective responses, policies and actions, Prof. McElwee said: \u201cOur current governance structures and approaches are not responsive enough to meet the interconnected challenges that result from the accelerated speed and scale of environmental change and rising inequalities. Fragmented and siloed institutions, as well as short- term, contradictory and non-inclusive policies have significant potential to put achievement of the global development and sustainability targets at risk. This can be addressed by moving towards \u2018nexus governance approaches\u2019: more integrated, inclusive, equitable, coordinated and adaptive approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report offers a series of eight specific and deliberative steps to help policymakers, communities, civil society and other stakeholders identify problems and shared values in order to work together towards solutions for just and sustainable futures \u2013 presented as a graphical road map for nexus action.<\/p>\n\n\n
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