Mainstreaming biodiversity and climate action can benefit food security in Europe and Central Asia

While often treated separately, biodiversity loss and climate change are related and mutually reinforcing problems, causing the exacerbation and cascading of the individual effects of each.

The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2023 puts interlinked climate change and biodiversity-related risks among its top short-term and long-term risks – and these risks are rising. Given that half of the world’s economic output depends on nature, this means compromises to our well-being and resilience to multiple shocks.

A new release of the publication Biodiversity in Action II aims to shed light on the complex and interdependent nature of climate change and biodiversity loss. In addition to tracing the interlinkages of permacrises and consequences for the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, the publication emphasizes the actions and approaches that may help address both challenges.

Climate change accelerates biodiversity loss, which hampers the ability of agroecosystems to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Both compromise food and livelihood security and exacerbate social impacts across the globe and in the ECA region, where the majority of the population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture.

However, the intrinsic interlinkages between both challenges may be leveraged through coordinated action that delivers the highest benefits and the fewest trade-offs while effectively mainstreaming them together.  

New global biodiversity framework

A new, long-awaited plan of action through 2030 has been approved by the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which took place in December 2022 in Montreal, Canada. Around 16 000 participants attended the conference, representing nearly 200 governments, United Nations and international organizations, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, non-governmental organizations, academia, and the private sector.

Recognizing that the magnitude of the challenge of biodiversity loss, the COP15 adopted the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to guide biodiversity policy through four overarching goals to be achieved by 2050 and a set of 23 targets to be reached by 2030 to achieve a vision of living in harmony with nature.

More than half of the targets of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework are directly related to agrifood production. Among those is Target 10: “Ensure that areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the sustainable use of biodiversity, including through a substantial increase of the application of biodiversity friendly practices, such as sustainable intensification, agroecological and other innovative approaches, contributing to the resilience and long-term efficiency and productivity of these production systems and to food security, conserving and restoring biodiversity and maintaining nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services.”

The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will not succeed without active involvement and action from the food and agricultural sectors.

“With eight years remaining to reach 23 targets by 2030, the urgency and breadth of work require joining efforts to raise regional and national ambitions for action,” said Tania Santivanez, Agricultural Officer and Regional Coordinator of the Natural Resources, Biodiversity and Climate Change Initiative with the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia. “We must aim not only at zero loss of nature, but at net-positive impact on biodiversity in all our actions for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind.”

FAO widely recognizes the interconnected impacts of climate change and biodiversity and integrates coherent action on both. The FAO Strategy on Climate Change emphasizes the fundamental role of safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems for climate-resilient development and calls for climate action in synergy with action on biodiversity. The FAO Strategy on Biodiversity acknowledges the contributions of biodiversity in making agrifood systems more resilient and promotes the sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity for food and agriculture to provide options for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

The way forward for Europe and Central Asia

Under these frameworks, and in line with the regional action plan for mainstreaming biodiversity, the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia reiterates its commitment to supporting countries by providing guidance, technical advice and capacity building to harness synergies and integrate overlapping climate change and biodiversity considerations into relevant actions and programmes to meet the 2030 targets.

“With the new framework, which recognizes the underpinning role of agricultural sectors for its successful implementation, the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia is ready to assist countries in the integration of biodiversity for food and agriculture in the updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans, mainstreaming the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity, and strengthening cooperation with other conventions, as guided by the COP15 decisions,” said FAO Biodiversity Specialist Anna Kanshieva. “A consolidated approach within the biodiversity–climate nexus will allow us to turn interconnected challenges into coordinated solutions on our road to achieving Sustainable Development Goals.”