IPCC warns, biodiversity will be hard hit
By Cherelle Jackson
COPENHAGEN - Biodiversity or the diversity of plant and animal life within the Pacific region
will be hard hit if temperatures keep rising in the next thirty years.
According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) biodiversity in vulnerable areas
of the world are a cause for great concern if temperatures are not controlled or reversed soon.
In a report on the Physical Science Basis of climate change IPCC states: "For increases in
global average temperature exceeding 1.5 to 2.5°C, there are projected to be major changes in
ecosystem structure and function, species’ ecological interactions and shifts in species’
geographical ranges, with predominantly negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem
goods and services.
"Biological biodiversity is very clearly very sensitive to climate change, with projected loss
of the biodiversity scaling with the levels of impact going from a few percent from the lower
warming rankings we are talking about up to as much as 30 or more percent in key areas if
warming goes on the trajectories at the high end at the rates that IPCC considered."
Field believes that vulnerable areas such as the Pacific will again bear the brunt of the
impact.
"It is very important to remember that Vulnerability is not uniformly distributed. The level of
impact scales with the levels of emmissions," he said.
A Pacific climate expert agrees.
According to Climate Change Advisor for the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment
Programme (SPREP) biodiversity is an important area that needs to be considered.
Espen Ronneberg says: "The impacts of climate change on biodiversity are very well known. We
have a number of early studies in the region that clearly indicate strong impacts on
biodiversity in the region, both marine and terrestial. Obviously we need to take that into
account."
He says there are efforts to find the relationship between the two.
"We are looking at ways to link biodiversity conservation with mitigation and adaptation. It
becomes more complicated though because you are taking a more holistic approach to the problem
and therefore it becomes a much bigger excersice than simply looking at straight climate change
or straight conservation," Ronneberg said.
According to a Climate Change and Biodiversity (CCBM) assessment in Melanesian countries, the
risks are high for the species in that region.
The report indicates that Melanesia ’s terrestrial animal and plant species are especially
vulnerable to climate change because of high levels of endemicity in the region.
Species that are most threatened by climate change, those found near the tree line at higher
elevations, those found in isolated or outlying mountain ranges, small island mammals and
larger mammals.
According to the CCBM Assesment it is possible that species could shift their ranges along both
latitudinal and elevational gradients causing changes to ecological interactions such as
changes in inter-species competition and predation, seeding and fruiting patterns.
Dr. Geoffery Hope a foremer Professor at the Climate Change Institute in Australia, pointed out
that species and ecosystems have adapted to past climate changes.
However, he underscores in CCBM that during those past periods of climate change the ecosystems
most at risk were healthier than they currently are.
"In today’s world most ecosystems are already under pressure from other human-based threats
such as over-hunting, over-fishing, and forest cover changes. The effects of climate change add
yet one more stress factor to these ecosystems, and in some cases may become, the straw that
breaks the camel’s back.”