Biodiversity Catastrophe

[New] The post-2020 global biodiversity framework will be a critical opportunity to stop biodiversity loss and ensure that people continue to benefit from biodiversity into the future.
[New] Long-term strategic plans, such as the Post- 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, will need to include measurable, simple indicators for monitoring and halting biodiversity loss.
[New] The World Economic Forum lists the top global risks of 2020 as: Extreme weather, climate action failure, natural disasters, biodiversity loss, weapons of mass destruction and water crisis.
[New] Shifting to more sustainable agriculture, coupled with forest protection, for instance, could unlock more than $2 trillion per year in business value, while the World Economic Forum estimates that investing in nature-positive solutions could create 395 million jobs by 2030.
Global warming could cause catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout this century.
$44 trillion of economic value globally is exposed to risks from the loss of biodiversity and natural capital.
The risk of silent extinctions, where species go extinct without even being noticed, is one of the reasons behind the Australian Academy of Science's Decadal Plan for Taxonomy, which has led to the ambitious goal to document all Australian species in the next 25 years.
Half of all species worldwide will be facing extinction by the end of the century without urgent action.
Urgent action is needed to save life on Earth in response to a new global assessment revealing that nearly 27% of over 120,000 analyzed plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction.
Scientists have warned that climate change and other major disruptions - such as habitat loss and deforestation - could be causing Earth's first mass extinction since the one in which non-avian dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago.
More than 500 land mammal species are on the brink of extinction and likely to be lost over the next 20 years, according to scientists who have warned that the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating, and may herald the collapse of human civilisation.
The global population of wild species has fallen by 60% in the last 40 years, with one million species now at risk of extinction.
Climate change is the sixth mass extinction, which threatens to eliminate 20 to 50% of all species on Earth within this century.
One million natural species are threatened with extinction, many in a few decades, as three-quarters of the land-based environment on earth and about 66% of the marine environment are impacted by human activity.
Humanity will have given up on planet Earth if world leaders cannot reach an agreement this year to stop the mass extinction of wildlife and destruction of life-supporting ecosystems, the United Nation's new biodiversity chief has warned.
The pace at which biodiversity is being lost is unprecedented with currently nearly 1 million species, or 25% of the assessed animals and plants, being threatened by extinction in the coming decades.
Many species in Wales are in decline: 666 species are threatened with extinction and 73 species have already been lost.
About 389 out of 604 American bird species are at risk of extinction if global temperatures rise by 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.
Campaign groups such as Extinction Rebellion warn of 'unprecedented global emergency', 'climate breakdown' and 'mass extinction'.
Africa's carbon dioxide emissions increased 12 fold in roughly 50 years, and by the end of the next decade its organic carbon emissions will make up 50% of global emissions.
Rapid, large changes in global temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns will increase the vulnerability of many species to climate change and may lead to the extinction of entire species.
Some 40 per cent of primate species in West and central Africa are now threatened with extinction, and the conservation status of seven primate species have become more precarious in the past year.

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Last updated: 30 September 2020