Transcript Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America

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Commission for Environmental Cooperation
of North America
The CEC is an international organization
created by Canada, Mexico and the United
States under the North American Agreement
on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).
The Agreement complements the
environmental provisions of the
North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994.
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North American trade and economic activity
•
Largest free trade area in world
•
Combined GDP of over $17 trillion
•
Canada-Mexico-US trade has almost quadrupled to $ 1 trillion
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Challenge
Fostering protection and improvement of the
environment in North America - in the context of an increasingly integrated
continental economy
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Biodiversity - Focal areas of
cooperation . . .
Species
Capacity Building
Spaces
Information
Threats
Trade
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. . . and some of the results
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Climate and biodiversity
• Species, habitat, and ecosystems are part
of the same integrated system that
includes climate – and are profoundly
affected by climate variability
• But our ability to forecast the ecological
implications of a 450+ ppm world – and
the range of mitigation available – is poor
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Average temperatures are
definitely on the increase
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
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Implications for terrestrial ecology
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Many terrestrial ecoregions will
become significantly drier or wetter
Drought projections for IPCCs A1B scenario
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. . . and
oceans
are
acidifying
Steffen et al.,
2004
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Implications for refugia?
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Centres of endemism
Courtesy of Conservation International
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Invasive and Opportunistic Species
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Ecosystems as infrastructure?
Coastal wetlands as storm barriers –
Estimated service value (US only): 23.2 billion per year
Costanza et al, 2008
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Climate Change and Biodiversity:
Opportunities for Conservation and Business
•Rehabilitation and biodiversity
“offsets”
•Habitat/species “banking” Tradable habitat credits
• Carbon caps and tradable credits
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Partners
Gund Institute of Ecological
Economics, U of V
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What next?
• Improve our predictive & forecasting ability
• Develop scenarios, and integrate mitigation
into local, regional, and provincial land use
decision making
• Ensure that economic “stimulus” activities
include investments in ecological
“infrastructure”
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