The world recognizes the need to urgently act to address the
climate and biodiversity loss crises concurrently including their impacts and
relationships to human development and wellbeing. According to the Biodiversity and The
2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development, climate change is likely to become one of the most
significant drivers of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. Current global warming is already
affecting species and ecosystems around the world, particularly the most
vulnerable ecosystems such as coral reefs, mountains and polar ecosystems (IPBES). On the other hand, aquatic and
terrestrial ecosystems such
as forests, rangelands, croplands, peatlands and wetlands represent globally
significant carbon stores.
Human societies and ecosystems do not exist
separately. The communities that understand the complexity of managing
biodiversity also know how best to sustainably manage biodiversity to deliver
ecosystem services. Therefore, ACBA promotes conservation approaches that build
from the bottom up, respect human rights, justice and the rights holders and
their territories.
Financial flows
are currently not addressing the root causes of the biodiversity and climate
crises. We need to shift away from a focus on the challenges of the crises as
this leads to false solutions such as nature-based solutions (NBS). The root causes of biodiversity loss include land and sea-use change
including food productions systems, unsustainable consumption patterns and
climate change. The solution to global warming is reducing fossil fuel
emissions. By promoting carbon offsetting projects, we delay
real emissions reduction by enabling major GHG emitters to continue polluting. A
delay in reducing emissions simply increases the global carbon debt
exacerbating the impacts of extreme weather events and undermining the
resilience of ecosystems and societies and violation of human rights.
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