Biodiversity and climate crisis, an inseparable tandem

The biodiversity and climate crisis are inextricably intertwined and cannot be addressed or resolved independent of one another. Although the global storytelling has tended to focus on climate change, science points out that nature is a critical ally in the fight against climate change and nature loss.

On the 2024 International Day for Biological Diversity promoted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we want to emphasize scientific evidence shows that strong and healthy national ecosystems can help to fight climate change, as well as build resilience and help us adapt to climate impacts. However, the knowledge systems on climate and biodiversity remain fragmented despite thematic and procedural overlaps in both domains.

The environmental challenge posed by the loss of biodiversity is key for the director of CREAF, Joan Pino Vilalta, PhD in Biology, who states that "it would be impossible to obtain the multitude of ecological goods and services we need to live without biodiversity. Its loss is one of the greatest environmental challenges we have had to face in recent decades".

Science points out that nature is a critical ally in the fight against climate change and nature loss.

According to CREAF scientific coordinator, Alicia Pérez-Porro, "we're now experiencing some political momentum to break the silos and connect climate and biodiversity". It is something she summarizes as follows: “On the one hand, the presidencies of both UNFCCC , COP28, CBD and COP15 signed at COP28 in Dubai the Joint Statement on Climate, Nature, and People and, on the other one, “IPBES and IPCC co-sponsored a Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change on December 2020, to examine the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation”. The event brought together 50 of the world's leading biodiversity and climate experts, including CREAF researcher Lluís Brotons.

Here there is a short selection of some of our biodiversity-related research and activity:

• Biodiversity has been a sort of a guiding principle of CREAF's research. Just to mention some examples, we are part of the Horizon CSA project RESPIN, to contribute to stepping up European Union science policy support to biodiversity and climate policy at the European level and beyond.
• CREAF also presented the 1st biodiversity assessment of Catalonia based on the best available scientific evidence, the State of Nature 2020 report. It is intended to be the first step of the Natural Heritage and Biodiversity Observatory in Catalonia, Spain.
• We are members of Regions4, the global network of subnational governments that in COP28 released the ‘Transformative Multi-Level Action: Subnational Solutions for Climate & Biodiversity’, with a set of actions to help solve the biodiversity and global climate crisis.
• Some of CREAF’s scientists have taken a clear stance in favour of the European Nature Restoration Law, as a powerful tool to reverse the relationship between the environment and society.