Climate change and biodiversity

Abstract

At the global level, human activities have caused and will continue to cause a loss in biodiversity1 through, inter alia, land-use and land-cover change; soil and water pollution and degradation (including desertification), and air pollution; diversion of water to intensively managed ecosystems and urban systems; habitat fragmentation; selective exploitation of species: the introduction of non-native species: and stratospheric ozone depletion. The current rate of biodiversity loss is greater than the natural background rate of extinction. Acritical question for this Technical Paper is how much might climate change (natural or human-induced) enhance or inhibit these losses in biodiversity?