Biodiversity loss reduces global terrestrial carbon storage

Abstract

Addressing climate change and biodiversity loss together will more effectively address these crises. Although policymakers are starting to think about climate change mitigation initiatives that have co-benefits for biodiversity, the role of biodiversity itself in promoting carbon storage is often overlooked, with much focus simply on biomass or ecosystem extent. On one hand, this may mean that the scientific community is underestimating future carbon emissions by not accounting for biodiversity-driven carbon losses, thus increasing the urgency for mitigating climate and land-use impacts. On the other hand, this highlights the important role that ecosystem restoration, focusing on the composition of these ecosystems, can play in climate change mitigation. In other words, there is potential to link the restoration target (T2) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with that for climate-change mitigation (T8) and enhancing nature’s contributions to people (T11), emphasizing a need to reconsider the functional value of biodiversity rather than focusing only on area-based measures for conservation (e.g., so-called 30 by 30; T3)62. At a national and local level, this could mean that a focus on maintaining and restoring diverse ecosystems can increase the return-on-investment for carbon storage over the same land area. This may be particularly important for those ecoregions that are projected to have high levels of biodiversity-driven carbon loss.