Saving biodiversity and the climate with “natural climate solutions”?

Fourth event of our online series Contested Nature: Land use, climate protection and new genetic technologies in the context of the debate on the protection of biological diversity

Land use is increasingly becoming a source of hope for the future in international climate policy. The expectations are huge: According to estimates, up to 37% of the emission savings needed to remain below the 2°C mark could come from “natural climate solutions” such as reduced deforestation, reforestation and agriculture. Even though the food vs. fuel conflict as a result of increased biofuel production has already highlighted the trade-offs with land-based climate action, there are new dimensions that move land even more into the focus of global climate policy. “Climate neutrality” has become the new goal in the fight against global warming. This would entail states, cities and companies only emitting as much CO2 as can be removed from the atmosphere elsewhere. Nature-based solutions are thus directly linked to the perspective of global compensation mechanisms, and climate policy is coming further into the focus of existing conflicts over land-use. Food security, preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity – all of this must be achieved on the very same land, which is now also to be used to achieve climate goals to an increasing degree.

What contribution can natural carbon sinks actually make? How can the protection of biodiversity and food security, as well as the land and human rights of local populations be reconciled? What course must be set for this at the UN climate negotiations and the UN biodiversity summit next year?

 Guests:

• Dr. Kate Dooley (Research Fellow, Climate & Energy College,  University of Melbourne)

• Coraina de la Plaza (Global Forest Coalition)

• Norbert Gorißen (Head of the International Cooperation sub-department, German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety)

• Jutta Kill (Biologist)

• Presenter: Christiane Grefe (Author, Global Gardening: Bioökonomie - Neuer Raubbau oder Wirtschaftsform der Zukunft? [Bioeconomy - New Overexploitation or Economic Form of the Future?] and editor, Die ZEIT)

Languages: simultaneous interpreting in German, English

Free of charge

Contact: Eike Zaumseil, Brot für die Welt

E: eike.zaumseil@brot-fuer-die-welt.de

Note: This is the fourth event of our online series

Contested Nature: Land use, climate protection and new genetic technologies in the context of the debate on the protection of biological diversity

The issue is even bigger than climate change alone: Research is alerting us to the dramatic destruction of the natural foundations of life on Earth and warning of a sixth mass extinction. As early as 2010 – under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – the international community committed to halting the global loss of biodiversity by 2020. Not only has this goal been missed; the global extinction of species has actually accelerated.

The next Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP 15), postponed to 2021, is therefore of enormous importance: International biodiversity policy needs to establish a new framework and decide on new goals.

But the potential for conflict is great and there is a wide range of considerations vying for attention. Many, highly diverse interests are at play with regard to the protection, use and marketing of biological diversity. The focus in this regard is on questions of land use and access to natural resources as well as issues pertaining to assessing the impact of technology and its regulation.   

Contested Nature: Land use, climate protection and new genetic technologies in the context of the debate on the protection of biological diversity, a series of events jointly organized by Brot für die Welt, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Save Our Seeds and the Centre for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America (FDCL), will therefore hone in on complex issues that often receive little attention in traditional nature conservation debates. In this context, we will also address the question of political influence on the CBD and the opportunities for and obstacles to civil-society engagement. The four online conferences will be held in different languages.

Further events:

24 September: UN Convention on Biological Diversity at a crossroads?

15 October: Gene drives – protecting people and nature through genetic extermination?
29 October:  Who will profit from biological diversity in the future? Digital sequence information (DSI) and its potential for new forms of biopiracy

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