The axolotl, arguably one of the world’s most recognizable salamanders, has a unique ability to regenerate severed limbs, which unlocks medicinal and scientific opportunities for everything from tissue repair to development and cancer. After centuries of inbreeding, captive populations are at risk and scientists could lose the opportunity to learn vital information about the animal’s biology that could have significant benefits for human healthlan

Human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet. The previous chapter assessed where the world stands in 2020 in the face of existential climate risk. This chapter considers the other side of the same coin: how destabilizing tipping points in nature could exacerbate the social and economic consequences of climate risk. At the same time, understanding nature’s benefits could help societies leverage opportunities to stem the planetary emergency.

On the loss of species

All species, including humans, depend for their survival on the delicate balance of life in nature.2 Yet biodiversity—the diversity within species, between species, and within ecosystems—is declining faster than it has at any other time in human history.3 The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years—and it is accelerating.4 Although the world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living creatures, humanity has already caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants.5 If low estimates of the number of species are accurate—around 2 million—between 200 and 2,000 extinctions are occurring every year. At the upper end of the estimate, between 10,000 and 100,000 species are going extinct each year.6 How we grow food, produce energy, dispose of waste and consume resources is destroying nature’s delicate balance of clean air, water and life that all species—including humans—depend on for survival.7

2 Borenstein, S. 2019. “UN Report: Humans Accelerating Extinction of Other Species”. AP News. 06 May 2019. https://www.apnews.com/aaf1091c5aae40b0a110daaf04950672
3 IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services). 2019. Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Unedited Advance Version, 06 May 2019. See also UN Convention on Biological Diversity (https://www.cbd.int/, which defines “biodiversity” as “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”).
4 IPBES. 2019. Op. cit.
5 Bar-On, Y. M., R. Phillips, and R. Milo. 2018. “The Biomass Distribution on Earth”. PNAS 115 (25): 6506–11. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506
6 WWF (World Wildlife Fund). 2019. “How Many Species Are We Losing?” Our Work, How Much Is Being Lost? https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/biodiversity/biodiversity/
7 Borenstein. 2019. Op. cit.

Human activity endangers biodiversity in at least five main ways.8 First, agricultural and industrial expansion has led to the loss of over 85% of wetlands, altered 75% of land surface, and impacted 66% of ocean area. A second powerful threat is in the exploitation of plants and animals through harvesting, logging, hunting and fishing. Third, pollution: habitats are being destroyed by untreated waste; by pollutants from industrial, mining and agricultural activities; and by oil spills and toxic dumping. Marine plastic pollution alone has increased tenfold since 1980. A fourth critical driver of biodiversity loss is the introduction of non-indigenous species that edge out native ones; this has increased by 40% globally over the same period. Fifth, climate change exacerbates nature loss, which in turn reduces nature’s resilience to climate change—a vicious circle.9

8 IPBES. 2019. Op. cit.
9 See also IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2018. Summary for Policymakers. In Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2018/07/SR15_SPM_versio…; https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

Less directly, losses of biodiversity are driven by population growth, trade, consumption patterns and urbanization.10 By 2030, cities are expected to cover three times as much land as they did in 2000, with many of the expansions occurring in key biodiversity hotspots.11 Inadequate export controls have facilitated the spread of invasive species, pests and diseases, which aggravate a quarter of plant extinctions and a third of animal ones.12 Demand for food will more than double by 2050; meeting this demand will require an additional billion hectares of land—an area the size of Canada13—or increasing yields on existing land through the use of fertilizers and pesticides, which also contribute to biodiversity loss.

10 United Nations. 2019. “UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’”. Sustainable Development Goals. 06 May 2019. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-u…
11 Seto, K. C., B. Günerlap, and L. R. Hutyra. 2012. “Global Forecasts of Urban Expansion to 2030 and Direct Impacts on Biodiversity and Carbon Pools”. PNAS 109 (40): 16083–88. https://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/16083.short
12 Blackburn, T. M., C. Bellard, and A. Ricciardi. 2019. “Alien Versus Native Species as Drivers of Recent Extinctions”. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 17 (4): 203–07. https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fee.2020
13 Tilman, D., C. Balzer, J. Hill, and B. L. Befort. 2011. “Global Food Demand and the Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture”. PNAS 108 (50): 20260–64. https://www.pnas.org/content/108/50/20260
Implications for humanity

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