Transcript Presentation of Bratislava Regional Center 1

ECOSYSTEM BASED APPROACHES TO
CLIMATE CHANGE
Adriana Dinu
Environment and Energy Practice Manager, 20 September,
2011
Putoransky, Taimyr
© 2011 UNDP. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Proprietary and Confidential. Not For Distribution Without Prior Written Permission.
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Overview
Context:
- Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Ecosystem Services
- Key drivers of biodiversity loss
Ecosystem - key players in CC
- Definitions
- Tipping points
- Loss of Resilience could lead to collapse
UNDP work in ecosystem based mitigation and
adaptation
Nalichevo Park, Kamchatka
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Biodiversity and climate change are inter-connected
Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity
Changes in Biodiversity affect Climate
Change
Ecosystems play a key role in:
- Global Carbon Cycle;
- Adapting to Climate Change
- Provision of ecosystem services essential
for human beings
Ecosystem degradation:
- Reduces the C storage and sequestration
capacity
- Increases GHG emissions
- Reduces Biodiversity
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Ecosystem services contribute significantly to human well being
natural capital: quarter of total wealth in developing countries
Pollination:
US$ 153 billion/year (2005) = 9.5% of the value of the world agricultural production
Bees are in decline – affecting 35% of global food production
20-25 people to pollinate 100 apple trees in one day vs. two colonies of honeybees
Fisheries:
Over one billion people rely on fishery as the major source of food
200 Million people are employed in fishery - US$ 100 billion income
80% of the world fisheries are fully or over-exploited
Forestry:
1.56 billion dependent on forestry
Annual rate of deforestation: 13 million ha
Annual loses from deforestation and degradation: 2 – 4.5 trillion (TEEB)
Medicine from Nature:
80% of people in Africa has traditional medicine - main source of health care
Cone snails might contain the largest number of human medicine of any genus
1 billion people depend of drugs derived from forest plants
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Ecosystems are essential part of the global response to CC
Ecosystem – based Mitigation
Sequestration: Carbon
Sequestration:
Carbonin
capture
capture
and storage
living
and storage in living and dead
and dead
vegetation
in:
vegetation
in:
 Forests
 Forests
 Grasslands
 Grasslands
 Inland waters
 Inland
 Marinewaters
systems

Soil
and
humus
 Marine systems
 Soil and humus
Disaster relief:
through ecosystem
services, against:
 Avalanche
 Hurricane
 Flooding
 Tidal surges
 Drought
Ecosystem
Future resources: from
wild species including:
 Agrobiodiversity
 Pharmaceuticals
 Other genetic material
Current resources: for
humans such as:
 Clean water
 Fish spawning
 Wild food
 Building materials
 Local medicines
 Shelter
Ecosystem – based Adaptation
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
However, biodiversity is lost at unprecedented pace

Species at risk are moving closer to extinction
1 in 4 mammals threatened with extinction!
1 in 8 birds threatened with extinction!
Farmland bird populations in Europe declined by
50% since 1980
1 in 3 amphibians threatened with extinction!

60% of ecosystem functions are being
degraded faster than they can recover (MA);

Demand for food will increase 70-80% by
2055: further 10 – 20% of grassland and forest
to be converted to agriculture – this will result
in increase GHG and biodiversity loss;
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Drivers of biodiversity loss
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Climate Change and Other Pressures: Driving
Ecosystems to Tipping Points
Shifting to a new state
Source: GBO-3
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Example : Grasslands exposed to over-grazing
Original state
High biodiversity
Native grass
Grass dominated system
High economic value
Altered state
Low biodiversity
Invasive species – weeds
Shrub dominate system
Low economic value
Even when grazing pressure is relaxed, there may be little change in composition,
because of the advantage of woody vegetation over grass when the woody is dominant
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Example :Natural
Lakes
exposed
causes:
in aging to nutrient pollution
lakes – building-up
Anthropogenic:
concentration
of plant
nutrients
input from
nutrients
agriculture,
Slow process
– over
sewage…
centuries.
Oligotrophic
Low primary productivity
Low nutrient content
High Drinking water quality
High biodiversity
High economic value
Eutrophic
High primary productivity
High nutrient content – algal bloom
Poor Drinking water quality
Low biodiversity
Low economic value
Can be reversible – controlled by P input; irreversible shifts between stability domains
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Why is Ecosystem Resilience Important?
Without resilience, ecosystems become vulnerable to the effects of
disturbance that previously could be absorbed
Climate change, interacting with other land use pressures, might
overcome the resilience of even some large areas of primary ecosystems,
pushing them into a permanently changed state.
Past an ecological ‘tipping point’, ecosystems could be transformed into
a different type, and, in extreme cases, a new ecosystem state.
The new state may be biologically and
economically impoverished, and irreversible.
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
What is Resilience?
Materials science: property of returning to the original shape after deformation
that does not exceed the elastic limit
Psychology: the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe
Ecology: capacity of an ecosystem to persist in the face of disturbance
• cope with disturbances (storms, fire) without shifting into a qualitatively
different state
• withstand external pressures and reorganize, so as to still retain the same
function, structure, identity and feed-backs
A resilient ecosystem is able to maintain its ‘identity’ in terms of taxonomic
composition, structure, ecological functions, and process rates
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
UNDP’s work in Ecosystem Based Adaptation
Maintain land and water ecosystem resilience and
sustain or restore ecosystem services vital to
reducing the vulnerability of society to climate
change.
1. Design and implement measures to maintain the
resilience of ecosystems under new climatic
conditions—so that they can continue to supply essential
services that help people adapt to the adverse effects of
CC;
2. maintenance of forests in water catchment areas,
where landslides are likely to occur after heavy rain;
3. maintenance and restoration of natural wetlands, to
store water and regulate water base flows.
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
UNDP’s work in Ecosystem Based Mitigation
Reduce emissions from deforestation, forest
degradation, agriculture and other land use
change, and enhance ecosystem sequestration
capacities.
1. sequestration by increasing the size of carbon
pools (establishing protected areas, afforestation,
reforestation and restoration)
2. maintaining existing carbon stores (avoiding
deforestation or protecting wetlands);
3. maintenance of healthy coral reefs and the ocean
carbon sink; and,
4. substitution of fossil fuel energy by cleaner
technologies which rely on biomass.
The global potential of biological mitigation options: approx. 100 GtC by 2050,
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
- equivalent to about 10–20% of projected fossil‐fuel emissions during that period.
Maintaining Landscape Scale Resilience
Source: Ecoagriculture Partners
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Landscape Level Management in Altai Sayan ecoregion: CC
mitigation and adaptation benefits in carbon rich forests
Improved connectivity: Adaptation to
CC through PAs and ecological
corridors
Fire Management: Minimizing humancaused threats of fires to the carbon
pools
3.21 billion tones of Carbon
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Peatland restoration in Belarus: key success parameter raise the water table to around 0 m
Drop in groundwater < 20 cm – irreversible change (tipping point
Before renaturalization
After renaturalization
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
Peatland restoration in Belarus: multiple benefits
28,000 ha
rewetted.
Reduced annual
emission of CO2 by
280,000 tons
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.
THANK YOU!!!
Climate Change Fundamentals and Local Action ,September 19-22, 2011.