Webinar: Integrating Climate Change Considerations into National Ecosystem Assessments
- Resource
The National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) Initiative and the Sub-Global Assessment Network (SGAN) at UNEP-WCMC, held a webinar on Thursday, 21st September 2023 aimed at sharing knowledge and best practices for integrating climate change considerations into national ecosystem assessments. The webinar also presented the newly launched guidance document “Entry Points for Integrating Climate Change Considerations into National Ecosystem Assessments” published by the NEA Initiative.
Dr. Valerie Kapos, Principle Technical Specialist at UNEP-WCMC, opened the webinar by highlighting the consequences of climate change on the persistence of species and the functioning of ecosystems, which in turn affects nature’s contribution to people worldwide. She acknowledged that nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation can be utilized if we know how they are distributed, how significant their potential is, and how robust that potential will be in the face of climate change. She emphasised the importance of understanding nature’s contribution at the national and sub-global level and the potential impacts of climate change on their delivery, which is vital to informing progress towards global goals and ensuring integrated decision-making and progress on climate and biodiversity at the national level. She concluded that the guidance document and the webinar provide insights into how these issues can be integrated within national ecosystem assessments.
Dr. Boipelo Tshwene-Mauchaza, Programme Officer at UNEP-WCMC, presented entry points for integrating climate change considerations into the four key stages in the national ecosystem assessment process. She noted that climate change can be considered within the key policy questions that the assessment addresses. Another entry point is when biodiversity and ecosystem services’ drivers, pressures, and impacts are being analysed. Evaluating future scenarios projecting likely pathways for biodiversity and ecosystem services provides further opportunities to consider climate change. She emphasised stakeholder engagement as another entry point to integrate climate change considerations. Finally, she provided an overview of the Climate Change Checklist included in the guidance document. She shared that the checklist provides a series of questions/steps for integrating climate change as well as key considerations and background related to these questions.
Dr. Boi’s presentation paved the way for a panel discussion revolving around experiences from South Africa, Colombia and the European Union. Panellists shared their first-hand experience and lessons learned on addressing climate change and biodiversity as interlinked issues through their ecosystem assessments. The discussion was moderated by Ceire Booth, Programme Officer at UNEP-WCMC.
Prof. Juan Camilo Villegas Palacio, Coordinator of the Research Group in Applied Ecology, School of Environment, University of Antioquia, Colombia, who was one of the authors of Colombia’s National Ecosystem Assessment spoke about some of the practical approaches that were adopted to integrate climate change in their assessment process. He noted that the assessment involved multi-disciplinary experts including people working on climate change. Furthermore, he pointed towards the lack of evidence and studies regarding the impact of climate change on ecosystems in the region, which leads to making assumptions in results to make them relevant regionally. He also mentioned challenges with baseline data in the region, due to which future scenarios are highly uncertain.
Dr. Graham von Maltitz, Climate Specialist, South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), South Africa, shared examples wherein the integration of climate change considerations led to changes in policy or management practices at the local or national level. For instance, he spoke about the Ecosystem-based adaptation strategy developed by SANBI which has been in place for the past five years and is currently being reviewed. He also mentioned a new initiative to develop specific adaptation strategies for each national park in South Africa – a huge step forward in integrating climate change considerations into national park management. In terms of challenges faced, he highlighted inconsistencies in model predictions with ground realities.
Anne Teller, Senior Expert, European Commission, shared a lesson learned to reinforce water (e.g. accounting for the water cycle properly) and ecosystem services in climate models. She also highlighted the importance of considering biodiversity loss in climate models. She emphasised that the demand for data from climate modellers should support the achievement of EU’s 2040 climate targets.
In closing, Juanita Chaves, Senior Programme Officer at UNEP-WCMC, reiterated the conclusions reached in the panel discussion – that only by recognising biodiversity loss and climate change as part of the same complex problem, can solutions be developed to maximise beneficial outcomes. National ecosystem assessments must incorporate climate change considerations which will allow decision-makers to understand the challenges and develop effective strategies.