Implications of the Paris Agreement for Biodiversity and Conservation Planning (IMPALA)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of East Anglia
Department Name: Tyndall Centre
Abstract
Climate change creates risks to biodiversity, in particular by changing the climate in which species live, and making it unsuitable for them to continue to live there. In December 2014, under the United Nations Paris Agreement countries agreed to 'pursue efforts to ...limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels'. IMPALA seeks to understand these risks to biodiversity arising in a future world in which humans limit climate change to 1.5C warming compared to pre-industrial times, and to compare this with the situation when there is 2C warming (hereafter referred to as 1.5/2C). It seeks understand the relative risks both globally, and at the regional scale. Species also face a challenge in being able to track their preferred climate space across a landscape, both in terms of the speed of movement required and in dealing with natural and/or manmade obstacles to movement. Several previous studies have projected extensive range loss and increased extinction risks across large fractions of species globally or regionally due to climate change e.g. amongst 50,000 species studied, 57+/-5% of plants and 34+/-7% of animals are projected to lose over half their climatic range for a warming of approximately 3.6C above pre-industrial levels. But what difference does 0.5C make? Is there really much difference between 1.5C and 2C of warming when it comes to terrestrial biodiversity? Examination of the large-scale potential changes in climatic ranges of 80,000 species at 2C versus 2.5C suggests that there may be a large difference, at least in some parts of the world. These differences have the potential to put much of the past investment in conservation at risk. This study will look at the areas where it makes the most difference to constrain warming to 1.5 versus 2C, looking specifically at Global Protected Areas, and key conservation regions such as biodiversity hotspots. It will identify which Protected Areas are most, and least, at risk from biodiversity changes at 1.5 vs. 2C, and where corridors between protected areas would do the most good. IMPALA is designed to inform decision makers in the UK government and also within environmental NGOs, in particular World Wildlife Fund-UK. Environmental NGOs are interested in conservation planning, that is deciding which areas of the world need to be brought into the protected area network, or protected by other means such as working with local people to protect habitats for species. Since it is not possible to protect all natural ecosystems, NGOs and Governments need to prioritise, and climate change will affect that prioritisation by changing the places where species can live. IMPALA will inform WWF-UK, other NGOs, and Governments whether the existing protected area system is robust to warming of 1.5/2C, which areas are most at risk, and which areas act as refuges where species can still live after 1.5/2C global warming has occurred. IMPALA considers how species try to move to track climate change, and will also identify places that need to be protected to enable species to move and colonize new areas in response to climate change. Complicating the efforts to allow ecosystems (and biodiversity) to adapt naturally to climate change may be the efforts needed to hold climate change to 1.5C of warming. Many proposals to limit warming to 1.5 and 2C of warming require large areas to be converted to bioenergy crops. There is the risk that it may be necessary to convert large areas of primary/secondary forest and other ecosystems to bioenergy crops, so that agricultural land can continue to grow food. As habitat loss is a major factor in biodiversity loss, then it might potentially be worse for biodiversity at 1.5C warming than 2C warming. This study will look for win-win solutions for biodiversity and mitigation in order to promote Article 2 compliant mitigation - that is, mitigation that hinders neither ecosystems from adapting naturally and the production of food.
Planned Impact
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement of December 2015 emphasizes the 'urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties' mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C'. This project will inform decision makers in government and non-governmental organisations about the relative risks to biodiversity in a world that warms by 2C compared to 1.5C, both globally and regionally. It will also provide spatially explicit information about the extent to which the global protected area network is fit for conserving biodiversity under these levels of warming, and whether and where additional protected areas are needed to allow species to persist and move with climate change. Finally, information about indirect linkages arising between mitigation related land use change (e.g., bioenergy cropping) and biodiversity conservation will be provided. Because mitigating climate change to 2C or 1.5C is likely to require a large amount of bioenergy cropping, in particular to support bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCs) to provide 'negative' emissions', there is the potential for competition for land for growing biofuels, producing food, and preserving biodiversity in a world where climate is changing. The project staff have worked previously with members of the former UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, and with members of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the project builds directly on previous projects funded by these two institutions. Hence, these are the two specifically identified beneficiaries of this project, with DECC members now comprising the Science Team within the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Both the Science Team and WWF-UK (and elsewhere) will benefit from a better understanding of the global and regional benefits of constraining warming to 2C as opposed to 1.5C globally and regionally, which will inform them in their discussions about global scale mitigation efforts in the wake of the Paris Agreement. It will also inform them about the issue of bioenergy cropping which is often associated with the higher levels of climate change mitigation needed to limit warming to 2C or 1.5C, and the extent to which competition for land between bioenergy cropping, food security and biodiversity conservation might occur. WWF-UK and the wider WWF global network will benefit from information about the resilience of the world's protected area network to climate change, and the location of needed potential additional protected areas that could be created to better conserve biodiversity with these levels of warming. As this data will be publically available then other scientific groups (see Academic Beneficiaries), other non-governmental conservation organizations (e.g., Wildlife Conservation Society) and Governments (e.g., Australia, Brazil and throughout the Amazon), with whom the team also has links, will also benefit. This will better inform their conservation efforts. Overall these impacts act to increase the effectiveness of climate change policy, and to increase quality of life globally through biodiversity conservation.
Publications
Hoegh-Guldberg O
(2019)
The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Price J
(2024)
Biodiversity losses associated with global warming of 1.5 to 4 °C above pre-industrial levels in six countries
in Climatic Change
Smith P
(2018)
Impacts on terrestrial biodiversity of moving from a 2°C to a 1.5°C target.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Warren R
(2018)
The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change for globally significant biodiversity areas
in Climatic Change
Warren R
(2021)
The Impacts of Climate Change
Warren R
(2018)
The projected effect on insects, vertebrates, and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Description | In the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the United Nations is pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C, while earlier aspirations focused on a 2°C limit. With current pledges, corresponding to ~3.2°C warming, climatically determined geographic range losses of >50% are projected in approximately 49% of insects, 44% of plants, and 26% of vertebrates. At 2°C this falls to 18% insects, 16% plants, and 8% vertebrates and at 1.5°C to 6% insects, 8% plants, and 4% vertebrates. When warming is limited to 1.5°C as compared with 2°C, numbers of species projected to lose >50% of their range are reduced by ~66% in insects, and by ~50% in plants and vertebrates. |
Exploitation Route | They will help provide information about the benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which will help inform cilmate policy makers. The database we produced is now providing information to organisations working on biodiversity conservation on the ground in North and South America. |
Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Environment |
Description | We held a collaborative workshop with World Wildlife Fund. An All Party Parliamentary Group on Endangered Species at Westminster was briefed on our finding. The findings were used to support key statements in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C warming Summary for Policymakers which appeared in October 2018. The findings were also quoted, including a detailed Figure, in the 2021 UNEP Making Peace with Nature Report here https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature. Our journal publication has now been cited over 100 times and downloaded times. The findings have now been also cited in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. |
Sector | Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
Description | Citation of Warren el al 2018 and its SR1.5 mention in UNEP Making Peace with Nature report 2021 |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in systematic reviews |
URL | https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature |
Description | Citation of our publications in IPCC AR6 Assessment Report |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in systematic reviews |
Description | Citation of our publications in IPCC AR6 Assessment Report |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in systematic reviews |
Description | Citation of publications in UN reports |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in systematic reviews |
URL | https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature |
Description | Informing protected area network design in the USA, Colombia and Brazil |
Geographic Reach | North America |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Membership of the Earth League |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
URL | https://the-earth-league.org/who-we-are/ |
Description | Use in IPCC report |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in systematic reviews |
URL | https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ |
Description | Paris Agreement Overshooting Reversibility Climate Impacts and Adaptation Needs |
Amount | € 5,994,538 (EUR) |
Funding ID | 101003687 |
Organisation | European Commission H2020 |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 08/2021 |
Description | Topic A: Open CLimate IMpacts modelling framework (OpenCLIM) |
Amount | £1,869,001 (GBP) |
Funding ID | NE/T013931/1 |
Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2020 |
End | 08/2023 |
Title | Wallace Initiative 3 database and website |
Description | Database of model results on the impacts of climate change on 125,000 species at temperatures of 1.5 - 6 C and its accompanying website (see below) |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Much of the work has been published in peer reviewed journals it has beget two spin-off projects in Australia with our Australian partners including one that is extensively used by Natural Resource Managers in Australia. |
URL | http://wallaceinitiative.org |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Animalia: Habitat suitability distribution modelling for Animalia worldwide |
Description | Climate change scenarios were sourced from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for CMIP5 global climate models and scaled to 20km resolution. Species occurrence records were downloaded from GBIF. Maxent was used to model the habitat suitability distributions.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Underpins publications in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change and Science that were published as part of IMPALA and had major impacts as described elsewhere in this submission. Price, J. et al. including Warren, R., 2024. Biodiversity losses associated with global warming of 1.5 to 4°C above pre-industrial levels in six countries Climatic Change published 29/2/2024 Warren, R., Price, J., Graham, E., et al., 2018. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science 360, 791-795 Warren, R., Price J., Vanderwal J. et al. 2018. The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas. Climatic Change 147, 395-409. Downloaded 19,000 times. |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/1a78323e26198ce82693b27a6fe37303 |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Climate: Wallace 1.0 Climate models used to model species distributions |
Description | Climate change scenarios for Wallace 1.0. Includes the Community Integrated Asssessment System (CIAS) raw data and Climatic Data Generator (climmgen) outputs from the Tyndall Centre, University of East Anglia, UK. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Underpins publications in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change and Science that were published as part of IMPALA and had major impacts as described elsewhere in this submission. Price, J. et al. including Warren, R., 2024. Biodiversity losses associated with global warming of 1.5 to 4°C above pre-industrial levels in six countries Climatic Change published 29/2/2024 Warren, R., Price, J., Graham, E., et al., 2018. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science 360, 791-795 Warren, R., Price J., Vanderwal J. et al. 2018. The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas. Climatic Change 147, 395-409. Downloaded 19,000 times. |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/0acf5161f95395e2a3946b40d3073182 |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Fungi: Habitat suitability distribution modelling for Fungi worldwide |
Description | Climate change scenarios were sourced from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for CMIP5 global climate models scaled to 20km resolution. Species occurrence records were downloaded from GBIF. Maxent was used to model the habitat suitability distributions. Note these models did not make it into the published version of Wallace 2.0.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | None so far |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/aa4a122feb22b79bd410eebcde1f4e90 |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Initiative: Wallace v1.0 Initiative Original habitat suitability modelling for plants and animals |
Description | This dataset holds the original Wallace Initatiative 1.0 modelling for plants and animals worldwide.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Underpins publications in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change and Science that were published as part of IMPALA and had major impacts as described elsewhere in this submission. Price, J. et al. including Warren, R., 2024. Biodiversity losses associated with global warming of 1.5 to 4°C above pre-industrial levels in six countries Climatic Change published 29/2/2024 Warren, R., Price, J., Graham, E., et al., 2018. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science 360, 791-795 Warren, R., Price J., Vanderwal J. et al. 2018. The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas. Climatic Change 147, 395-409. Downloaded 19,000 times. |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/b833b4df8840ead2d561d49c0a5cb6be |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Liliopsida: Habitat suitability distribution modelling for Liliopsida worldwide |
Description | Climate change scenarios were sourced from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for CMIP5 global climate models and scaled to 20km resolution. Species occurrence records were downloaded from GBIF. Maxent was used to model the habitat suitability distributions.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | N/A |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/8cedabfce2ff0483873fe7ae5f6b057a |
Title | Wallace v2.0 Magnoliopsida: Habitat suitability distribution modelling for Magnoliopsida worldwide |
Description | Climate change scenarios were sourced from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for CMIP5 global climate models and scaled to 20km resolution. Species occurrence records were downloaded from GBIF. Maxent was used to model the habitat suitability distributions.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | None so far |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/a020e54e7b76c5d903d694f6da44ca07 |
Title | Wallace v2.0: Accessory data and files for producing species distributions |
Description | This dataset holds miscellaneous files for producing the Wallace 2.0 modelling for plants and animals worldwide. This includes shapefiles, scripts, tarred backups, and summary files for producing the Science manuscript.
https://wallaceinitiative.org/ |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | None |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/e70927670bd370f9af00bba5aca55395 |
Title | Wallace v2.0: Helix climate based habitat suitabililty models for selected plants and animals |
Description | Wallace 2.0 uses new temperature time-series data for four RCPs provided by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre UK to model the distributions of plants and animals worldwide. Here we compared our projections to a small subset of plants and animals modelled with the High End Climate Impacts and Extremes (HELIX) projections to provide scientific rigour. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | N/A |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/e77601c2925be906bdf28d56e086b58b |
Title | Wallace v2.0: Public biodiversity maps summarized for all taxa levels and climate |
Description | Wallace 2.0 uses new temperature time-series data for four RCPs provided by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre UK to model the distributions of plants and animals worldwide. Biodiversity summaries were produced at each taxa level (KPCOFGS) of plants and animals in Wallace 2.0. These include areas of concern, refugia, and richness maps. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Underpins publications in Nature Climate Change, Climatic Change and Science that were published as part of IMPALA and had major impacts as described elsewhere in this submission. Price, J. et al. including Warren, R., 2024. Biodiversity losses associated with global warming of 1.5 to 4°C above pre-industrial levels in six countries Climatic Change published 29/2/2024 Warren, R., Price, J., Graham, E., et al., 2018. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science 360, 791-795 Warren, R., Price J., Vanderwal J. et al. 2018. The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement for Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas. Climatic Change 147, 395-409. Downloaded 19,000 times. |
URL | https://research.jcu.edu.au/data/published/edcf4b903b73e06209a317b9e6557c73 |
Description | Engagement with World Wildlife Fund |
Organisation | World Wide Fund for Nature |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We held a joint workshop with WWF; we present the research results from the IMPALA project. We also completed a consultancy project for WWF during 2015-2016 |
Collaborator Contribution | They hosted the workshop. They funded the consultancy project. |
Impact | A publication, Warren R, Price J, VanDerWal J, Cornelius S, Sohl H. (2018). The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change for globally significant biodiversity areas. Climatic Change. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Wallace Initiative |
Organisation | James Cook University |
Department | Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Provided climate change data, and guidance on its use Participated in collaborative research to coproduce a publication |
Collaborator Contribution | Ran biodiversity computer models Participated in collaborative research to coproduce a publication |
Impact | Publication (See publication list) Multi-disciplinary (climate change science, ecology) |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Giraffe Conservation Foundation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
Results and Impact | Following completion of the IMPALA project, co-investigator Jeff Price and I advertised a PhD project on climate change and giraffes, to be based on the methods used in the Wallace Initiative that is also used in IMPALA. We engaged with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. We recently visited them and our student showed them her Shiny App which indicates areas that are the most climatically suitable for the various giraffe species in the future. They plan to use the information to inform their translocation conservation work going forward. We could not have advertised this PhD without the earlier funding of the IMPALA project which gave rise to two important publications of our work in the area of biodiversity and climate change. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
Description | Ongoing BEIS funded consulting project Climate Services Now, led by Ricardo and the Tyndall Centre |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | BEIS funded us to deliver climate services in the form of a series of deliverables which will be used for dissemination and outreach for BEIS internal purposes. FCDO and DEFRA also benefit from the findings. It is too early for impact to have yet accrued. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
Description | Presentation to the FCDO |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | My team was invited to present our research findings on climate change risks to the FCDO. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |