BetterEnvironmental problems get handed out one per organisation, one per ministry, one per campaign. It is how work gets divided, and it feels like the responsible way to do it.
IPBES assessed 186 scenarios from 52 separate studies to see what that produces.
“A focus on trying to maximize the outcomes for only one part of the nexus in isolation will likely result in negative outcomes for the other nexus elements.”
Including climate: “An exclusive focus on climate change can result in negative outcomes for biodiversity and food, reflecting competition for land.”
This is not an argument against acting. It is an argument against acting on one thing at a time.
Three examplesThree ways to fail while succeeding
The report gives three, and each describes a real strategy that a serious person could defend.
- Food first. Prioritising food production delivers “positive benefits on nutritional health”arising from “unsustainable intensification of production and increased per capita consumption”. Negative for biodiversity, water and climate.
- Climate only. An exclusive focus produces “negative outcomes for biodiversity and food, reflecting competition for land”. Land used for one purpose is not available for another.
- Weak regulation, worsened by delay. The report treats these as one item, and it damages all four: biodiversity, food, human health and climate change.
Read the first two again. Both describe a policy that succeeds at its own goal. Food production rises; nutritional health improves. Emissions fall. The failure is not in the objective, it is entirely in what the objective was allowed to ignore.
What worksWhat the working scenarios have in common
The report does not stop at the diagnosis. It describes the shape of the futures that come out well, and the shape is a list joined by one word.
“The future scenarios with the widest nexus benefits are those with actions that focus on sustainable production and consumption in combination with conserving and restoring ecosystems, reducing pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change.”
Four things at once, not four things in order. And the report adds that focusing on just one sector “seriously limits the chances of meeting other goals”including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity targets and the Paris Agreement.
The report presents more than 70 response options in 10 broad categories. Twenty-four of them advance more than five Sustainable Development Goals and more than five biodiversity targets at once. Examples with broad benefits: restoring carbon-rich ecosystems, managing biodiversity to reduce disease spillover from animals to humans, urban nature-based solutions, sustainable healthy diets, supporting Indigenous food systems.
An admissionThe sentence that buys the rest its credibility
One line in the response-options section does more for the report's trustworthiness than any other, because of what it costs the authors to write.
“Other response options are important, but may not have as many synergistic benefits for all nexus elements. Some, such as offshore wind power and dams, may have negative impacts on other nexus elements if not carefully implemented.”
A UN scientific body naming two flagship renewable technologies as potentially harmful is not the expected move. It is also exactly why the rest of the report is worth reading: it is not advocating for a camp.
The qualifier matters as much as the naming: if not carefully implemented. The report is not saying do not build them. It is saying that a solution to one element is not automatically a solution to the others, which is the same finding as the rest of the article, applied to the good guys.
ParticipationWho is in the room
The report's last practical point is about method rather than content, and it comes with a worked example.
Including Indigenous Peoples and local communities “in the co-design, governance and implementation” of response options, the report says, increases both their benefits and their equity. The example given is concrete: marine protected areas that involved communities in management and decision-making produced “increases in biodiversity, greater abundance of fish to feed people and improved incomes for local communities”.
Which is the same structure once more. The measure that worked on four things at once is also the one that had four kinds of people deciding it.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
What do IPBES's 186 scenarios show?
Two things. First, that if current trends continue, outcomes will be “extremely poor” for biodiversity, water quality and human health. Second, and this is the less expected part, that focusing on one element alone will likely produce negative outcomes for the others.
Can focusing on climate do harm?
IPBES puts it plainly: “an exclusive focus on climate change can result in negative outcomes for biodiversity and food, reflecting competition for land”. This is not an argument against climate action: it is an argument against climate action taken alone.
What is a “food first” approach?
Prioritising food production. IPBES describes the effect: real benefits for nutritional health, but arising from “unsustainable intensification of production and increased per capita consumption”, with negative impacts on biodiversity, water and climate change.
So which scenarios work?
The ones that combine. According to the report's co-chair, “the future scenarios with the widest nexus benefits are those with actions that focus on sustainable production and consumption in combination with conserving and restoring ecosystems, reducing pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change”.
Does IPBES admit some solutions do harm?
Yes, and it names them. Among the more than 70 response options it presents, it specifies that some, “such as offshore wind power and dams, may have negative impacts on other nexus elements if not carefully implemented”.
How fast is biodiversity declining?
By 2 to 6% per decade, across all assessed indicators, over the last 30 to 50 years. It is the figure IPBES places first in its statistics annex.
Read nextRelated
Sources
- Media Release: IPBES Nexus Assessment, 17 December 2024
- Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health, IPBES, December 2024
About this article. General and educational information. The findings come from the IPBES media release of 17 December 2024 presenting the Nexus Assessment, including its future-scenarios section and its statistics annex. The scenarios are projections drawn from 52 studies, not forecasts; IPBES writes “likely” where we write it too.
Spotted an error or an out-of-date figure? Write to us: we will correct it and re-date the article. Our texts are written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked against official sources before publication, but a figure or a definition can change without us catching it. If anything here does not match what an official body tells you, they are right.